Bridie Gillman's Ground Work 1 is a finalist in the 2026 University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ) Art Award.

The UniSQ Biennial Art Award is a national prize celebrating contemporary Australian art. Hosted by UniSQ, it features a total prize pool of over $25,000. The award is open to artists working in mediums including painting, drawing, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, photography, and multidisciplinary practice.

Read about the award here.

Image: Ground Work 1, 2024, oil on linen, 122 x 102 cm

Bridie Gillman's Pink twins in the night rain is a finalist in the 2026 Gosford Art Prize.

The Gosford Art Prize is an annual award that attracts entries from across Australia. The prize started as a community-driven project in 1970 and has grown to become one of the highlights of the Gosford Regional Gallery’s exhibition calendar and an important part of the cultural landscape of the Central Coast. This year, the prize pool exceeds over $55,000 and presents a major acquisitive prize of $25,000.

Read about the award here.

Image: Pink twins in the night rain, 2026, oil on canvas, 61 x 51 cm

Ces McCully's work is featured in the permanent collection at Moco Museum in London, which boasts a stellar selection of modern and contemporary art.

McCully is featured along with the work of Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, Damien Hirst, Banksy, Jeff Koons, and Andy Warhol.

Read more here.

Bridie Gillman is a finalist in the Sunshine Coast National Art Prize 2026 for her work 'On the bend, while I waited', 2026, oil on linen, 137 x 107 cm (pictured above).

The finalists' works will be exhibited at Caloundra Regional Gallery from August 21 to October 11, with the winners including $25,000 Major Prize to be announced on September 24.

Read more about the prize here.

Brendan Huntley and the art of “making do”

Whether painting, sculpting, or singing in garage-rock band Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Brendan Huntley’s practice has an energetic impulse.

In almost every interview you do, people link your music and art practice. I was thinking how Eddy Current Suppression Ring, and much underground music, is a music of ‘making do’ with what you have. And I thought about how you make marks on your canvases and ceramics with sometimes rudimentary tools—it’s also a sense of ‘making do’. But when that happens for 20 years, does the naivety still stay there, or do you have to cultivate it?

I’ve been thinking about that lately because Eddy Current has been jamming more regularly again— although we kind of go in and out, we still have our sound. Some bands make a conscious effort to change their sound, but because we’ve always kept it so stripped back, the rest is about how strong you can make the music, the lyrics, and the delivery of those elements. That’s on the human. And, like you say, it’s how I make my artwork too; there’s a simple frugalness to it. Not necessarily with the quality of the tools and materials, but more about keeping it stripped back. Using those simple rudimentary tools and materials cuts the fat away. It’s not necessarily cultivating something raw, it just is raw. Keeping things stripped back also leaves plenty of room for accepting accidents—and the ability to see them with clarity. It’s knowing the difference between good accidents and bad accidents, and having the confidence to follow the good ones.

Published on 31 August 2023

Words by Tiarney Miekus

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IMAGE:

Photograph by Andrew Curtis

The Birregurra Art Show, held at the Birregurra Community Hall, has a long and distinguished history, attracting hundreds of entries from artists throughout Victoria. In 2025, Rhys Lee won Best Artwork By A Local Artist for his work Seated with Red & Green Gloves.

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IMAGE:

Rhys Lee

Seated with Red & Green Gloves 2025

Dec 6, 2025 - Feb 22, 2026

Curated by special guest Cassie May, Synchron City leads visitors on a strange and immersive journey through contemporary art where artworks disrupt and question everyday life. Touching on elements of superstition and the supernatural, this exhibition expands the senses and leaves us questioning what is real and what is dream.

Curated by special guest Cassie May, Synchron City features works by a range of contemporary artists including Patricia Piccinini, Jon McCormack, Kenny Pittock, Heidi Yardley, Darren Sylvester, Brendan Huntley, Paula Mahoney, Kate Beynon, Kim Salmon, Paul Yore, SLIPPAGE, Rona Green, The Huxleys - and many more.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

Installation image of Brendan Huntley's work in Synchron City at Gippsland Art Gallery

Ross Laurie's Morning Chorus (pictured above) has been selected for the Salon des Refusés 2026. John McDonald, one of Australia's best-known critics, writes about the finalists in his column 'Everything the artworld doesn't want you to know'.

'Laurie’s canvases are a mixture of observation and introspection, in which a composition evolves by virtue of the way one mark or plane rubs up against the next. His Morning Chorus could just as easily be viewed as a still life, as each segment of countryside seems to stand on end, like objects on a tabletop' – John McDonald, 2026.

Read more here.

Finalists and winners of the Abbotsleigh Grace Cossington Smith art award have been selected this year by judges Barry Keldoulis, Artbank Client Services Coordinator, and Anna Davis, curator at Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

Sally Anderson's Balancing jug, Augie's 1S underwater painting, Haberfield window, horse for dad 2026 (acrylic on polyester, 168 x 137 cm) has been selected as a finalist for the award.

Exhibition of Finalists: Saturday 18 July to Saturday 15 August 2026

Opening and awards presentation: Wednesday 22 July 2026 6-8 pm

Read more here.

We are thrilled that Eliza Gosse is a finalist in the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

'Knowing where the sun will touch' 2026
oil and synthetic polymer paint on board
40 x 25 cm

Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2026
9 May – 16 August 2026
Art Gallery of New South Wales

READ MORE HERE

We are delighted to announce that Vipoo Srivilasa is a finalist in the 2026 Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

‘Guardian Light’ 2025
earthenware, glaze and gold lustre
100 x 50 x 50 cm

Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2026
9 May – 16 August 2026
Art Gallery of New South Wales

READ MORE HERE

We’re thrilled to announce James Drinkwater is a finalist in the Sulman Prize 2026 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

‘For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams’ 2026
oil, enamel and charcoal on linen
210 x 260 cm

Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2026
9 May – 16 August 2026
Art Gallery of New South Wales

READ MORE HERE

Miranda Skoczek was featured in Amber Creswell Bell's 'Australian Abstract'. The curator and bestselling author interviews and examines over forty contemporary abstract painters. Find out more about the book here.

Designed by Skoczek and woven by ATW weaver David Pearce, this intimate tapestry was produced during a short residency at ATW in 2025. A scaled-down translation of the artist’s 2024 oil painting of the same name, the work renders an ornate vase of white flowers suspended against a painterly field of reds and pinks, hinting at curtains and domestic textiles.

For Skoczek, ‘Flowers for Gosia’ is an ode to her late Aunt. The composition intertwines two memories: a bouquet of vibrant dahlias and cosmos received after her passing, and the image of Gosia herself, who permitted only white flowers in her home and garden. The quiet tension between restraint and abundance gently animates the work.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE: 'Flowers for Gosia' in progress

In 2025, James Drinkwater's work Sunday in Albi has been acquired by the Blanca and Borja Thyssen-Bornemisza collection for the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid.

Pia Murphy features in the new exhibition ‘Objective’ at Town Hall Gallery, Boroondara with a monumental mural work.

The exhibition reconsiders the still life genre through contemporary approaches to painting, video, sculpture and installation. Through her work, Pia Murphy elevates everyday objects into refined and unexpected visual experiences. Her works navigate the space between representation and abstraction, drawing on personal narratives to reframe familiar forms.

Through thoughtful experimentation, the artists within this exhibition contribute to a dynamic and expanded understanding of still life today.

Objective is open until 24 January 2026 at Town Hall Gallery, Boroondara.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGES:
Installation shot of Pia Murphy's mural in the exhibition OBJECTIVE at Town Hall Gallery, courtesy Boroondara Arts, and Image Play

Sally Anderson presents works in Town Hall Gallery’s latest exhibition, ‘OBJECTIVE’, which brings together a group of seven contemporary Australian artists to reimagine the boundaries of the still life genre. Artists in the exhibition include Pia Murphy, Tony Albert, Nadine Christensen, Adam John Cullen, James McGrath and Louise Paramor.

This ambitious exhibition challenges traditional expectations of the still life genre, presenting painting, video, sculpture and installation works that transform everyday objects into unique experiences. The participating artists each bring a distinctive conceptual and aesthetic approach: familiar items are abstracted, recontextualised and elevated, while subtle narratives encourage viewers to connect personally with the inanimate.

Several artists explore the interplay between the natural and the artificial, using form, colour and humour to reframe how ordinary scenes are perceived. Others embrace bold experimentation, offering playful and sometimes whimsical reinterpretations that refresh the still life tradition for contemporary audiences.

Within this diverse group, Sally contributes works that balance representation and abstraction, adding intimate reflections on memory and lived experience. Collectively, the exhibition presents a vibrant cross-section of current artistic practice, demonstrating how the still life genre continues to evolve.

‘OBJECTIVE’ is on view at Town Hall Gallery, Boroondara, until 24 January 2026.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGES:
Installation images of 'OBJECTIVE' at Town Hall Gallery, courtesy Boroondara and Christian Capurro.

Congratulations John Bokor who is a finalist in this year’s Kedumba Drawing Award, with his work ’Studio Table’.

The Kedumba Drawing Award is one of the longest running Australian drawing prizes, now in its 35th year. The winning drawing is acquired by the Kedumba Collection, housed in a gallery space provided by Blue Mountains Grammar School at Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. This extensive collection of works are on display to the public throughout the year in curated exhibitions.

The exhibition of finalists will be at the Kedumba Gallery in Wentworth Falls from 15 November to 28 January.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
JOHN BOKOR
‘Studio Table’ 2025
charcoal, wash and collage
90 x 70 cm

Vipoo Srivilasa’s re/JOY is now open at Tweed Regional Gallery.

The exhibition, supported by Creative Australia and the Australian Design Centre, has been touring the regional galleries of Australia since November 2024. This project is some of Vipoo’s largest works to-date, with seven ceramic sculptures towering at 1.5 metres high. Each piece has been carefully made by repurposing broken fragments of pottery, from members of the community who have experienced migration to Australia. The exhibition captures the diversity of experiences in Australia, and symbolises a careful rebuilding of life, highlighting the complex feelings and challenges that come with change. re/JOY is a joyful, playful and hopeful project.

Vipoo Srivilasa’s ‘re/JOY’ is open at Tweed Regional Gallery 15 November 2025 - 8 February 2026. The opening event is on Friday 14 November 6pm.

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IMAGE:
Vipoo Srivilasa Standing with his work 'Goddess of Independence’ from re/JOY Australian Design Centre, courtesy Jacquie Manning

We are delighted to announce the opening of Vipoo Srivilasa’s new exhibition, Express Yourself, at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art’s Children’s Art Centre.

Developed in collaboration with the Children’s Art Centre, this interactive project invites young visitors to explore the many ways we experience and express emotion through drawing, movement, and digital activities. The exhibition features a new iteration of Vipoo’s 2021 work Garden of Love, presented alongside a series of fresh participatory installations designed to inspire creativity, curiosity, and self-expression.

Conceived and developed over the past year, Express Yourself reflects Vipoo’s ongoing commitment to creating joyful spaces where art becomes a catalyst for connection.

The exhibition is open at GoMA's Children's Art Centre 11 October 2025 – 13 September 2026

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

Express Yourself installation view, courtesy QAGOMA and Chloë Callistemon

Bundit Puangthong's painting 'Sharp Knife' features in the exhibition ‘Good as Gold’, at Rockhampton Museum of Art. The exhibition celebrates artists whose works have been acquired into the collection through the Gold Award. Good as Gold celebrates the legacy of the Gold Award through highlighting the development of, and connections between artists from the award's history. The exhibition is also a celebration of the rich culture of giving and philanthropy in Rockhampton, and is named for benefactor Moya Gold.

Sharp Knife was first shown at Edwina Corlette Gallery in 2018, in the exhibition 'The Object of Life'

The exhibition is open 8 November 2025 - 1 March 2026 at Rockhampton Museum of Art.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
BUNDIT PUANGTHONG
Sharp Knife 2018
acrylic, spray paint and soft pastel on linen
168 x 168 cm

Miranda Skoczek has collaborated with Australian jewellery brand Pandora, to create a signature charm collection, featuring in Cosmopolitan.

“Collaborating with Pandora has allowed me to transform my symbolic language and designs into meaningful, wearable jewellery,” Skoczek says. “From my charm edit, in store artwork, packaging and engravable designs, there’s a natural alignment in how we both value storytelling, symbolism and self-expression which has made this partnership so special.”

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
Miranda Skoczek modelling her Pandora jewellery collection.

Ode: Margaret Olley and Sally Anderson is a celebration of important still life paintings by Margaret Olley (1923–2011) together with new work by Gadigal/Sydney-based artist Sally Anderson.

During her 2025 residency at the Nancy Fairfax Artist in Residence Studio, Sally embarked on a new body of work that responds not only to Margaret Olley’s remarkable still life paintings featured in Ode: Margaret Olley and Sally Anderson, but also to selected objects from the re-creation of Olley’s home studio. Interweaving deeply personal experiences and themes of domesticity, care, maternity, and mortality within her work, Anderson invites us to reconsider Olley’s still life paintings in a new light.

A Tweed Regional Gallery initiative. The Nancy Fairfax Artist in Residence Studio is supported by benefactor Mr. Tim Fairfax AC via the Tweed Regional Gallery Foundation Ltd.

“Olley’s still life paintings feature and appear as postcards or portals within mine, just as Cézanne, Matisse, and Manet (to name a few) appear within hers. I’ve deliberately arranged objects borrowed from Olley’s reconstructed home–studio alongside personally significant items within my compositions to give them new context and meaning. I think a lot about arranging—how we arrange thoughts, words, time, memories, clothes, households, feelings, gardens, furniture, objects, colour—and how rearranging the order of things ultimately shifts meaning, revealing new truths, narratives, and histories.”

The Nancy Fairfax Artist in Residence Studio is a live-in studio supporting artists from across Australia, encouraging connection between artist, community, and place.

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IMAGE:

SALLY ANDERSON
Study of MO’s still life in green 1947 with a banksia for dad, GM orchid and PP Bathers postcard 2025
acrylic on polycotton
137 × 153 cm

We’re excited to share that Eliza Gosse has collaborated with ROMY on their latest collection, Romy Athletic Society. Gosse brings her bold, rhythmic figures into a limited-edition nine-piece collection of wearable art. Channelling the spirit of the 1980s beachside, the collaboration celebrates movement, femininity, and individuality through retro-inspired athleisure.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

ROMY x Eliza Gosse collaboration

We are delighted to share that James Drinkwater is featured in the newly published Artists by Artists (Thames & Hudson), an ambitious project by Michelle Grey and Susan Armstrong. The book brings together fifty of Australia’s leading artists, thoughtfully paired to create portraits of one another.

Drinkwater was partnered with celebrated artist Ken Done, offering a unique exchange of perspectives and practices. The publication provides a rare insight into the creative processes, inspirations, and personal reflections that shape each artist’s work, while also highlighting the connections that emerge when artists turn their gaze towards each other.

Through striking imagery and candid storytelling, Artists by Artists presents an intimate and dynamic portrait of Australia’s contemporary art community, with Drinkwater’s contribution a highlight of this landmark project.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
James Drinkwater and Ken Done, courtesy Thames and Hudson

Edwina Corlette Gallery is pleased to announce Home to Home, Ces McCully’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery. Presenting seven new works, the exhibition reflects the vision of the Australian artist, now living and working in the south of France. McCully’s practice delves into the paradoxes of human experience, navigating the spaces between psychological and physical, masculine and feminine, and hard and soft, expressed through minimal forms, geometric structures, and recurring symbols.

Her work explores themes of female relationships and identity, combining textile and paint to create pieces that are tactile and visually striking. Often referred to as her ‘soft paintings,’ McCully embeds wool into raw canvas to form three-dimensional surfaces before painting over them, uniting opposing forces and reflecting on the balance between masculine and feminine, rigidity and fluidity.

Her first solo exhibition with the gallery, 'Home to Home', will run from 8–28 October, presenting a compelling body of work that reflects on contemporary culture, technology, and social dynamics through her signature interplay of form, texture, and abstraction.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

CES MCCULLY
Composition (Genesis) 2025
acrylic on burlap and acrylic wool
130 x 162 cm

Leading Australian painter Ross Laurie will showcase new artworks with Edwina Corlette Gallery at Sydney Contemporary 2025 - the country’s largest international art fair.

Sydney Contemporary Art Fair, held at Carriageworks in Sydney, is recognised as the most important platform for contemporary art sales in Australia. The fair brings together top commercial galleries, art collectors, investors, and curators, creating a central marketplace for buying and selling contemporary art. With record attendance each year, Sydney Contemporary offers strong opportunities for collectors to acquire investment-quality artworks directly from leading galleries.

Laurie’s participation in Sydney Contemporary with Edwina Corlette Gallery highlights the ongoing demand for Australian contemporary art and reinforces the gallery’s commitment to representing significant mid-career and established artists. His presentation will be a key feature for collectors, curators, and visitors looking to discover and acquire contemporary paintings at Australia’s premier art fair.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
ROSS LAURIE
The Field 2025
oil on canvas
120 x 150 cm

Australian artist Eliza Gosse is unveiling a new series of paintings at the Sydney Contemporary Art Fair 2025, presented by Edwina Corlette Gallery. Known for her exploration of mid-century modernism and architectural themes, Gosse’s latest works continue to investigate the relationship between space, structure, and emotion. Her precise compositions and distinctive use of color reflect her ongoing evolution as an artist.

The Sydney Contemporary Art Fair, one of the leading contemporary art events in Australia, provides an ideal platform for Gosse’s new collection. The fair, held at Carriageworks in Sydney, brings together over 90 galleries from around the world, offering a dynamic array of contemporary art from both emerging and established artists.

Gosse’s participation underscores her growing reputation in the Australian art scene, reinforcing the fair’s role in fostering critical engagement and dialogue within the global art community.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
ELIZA GOSSE
Kookaburra III 2025
oil on board cutout
35 x 24 cm

We are delighted to share that Sally Anderson's painting ‘Middle Brother Mother Mountain Fountain (PP Nude in a Garden, BT Mother and Child)’ is a finalist in the Calleen Art Award.

The Calleen Art Award is an annual acquisitive painting prize and exhibition. It presents the best of contemporary Australian painting in any style, theme or subject. Since its inception in 1977 by Cowra Art Patron Mrs Patricia Fagan OAM the Calleen Art Award has celebrated contemporary art practices and fostered originality, creativity and excellence in the visual arts.The winning artwork will join the Calleen Collection at Cowra Regional Art Gallery collection.

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IMAGE:
SALLY ANDERSON
‘Middle Brother Mother Mountain Fountain (PP Nude in a Garden, BT Mother and Child)’ 2024
acrylic on polycotton
183 x 197cm

We are thrilled to announce that Sally Anderson’s work is a finalists in the Gosford Art Prize, with her work ‘November bells, BT mother, birth banksias, PP nude in a garden’.

The Gosford Art Prize will be presented at Gosford Regional Gallery and is open to all artists across Australia. It attracts entries in all mediums from traditional forms to new media artworks. The 2025 iteration is the 26th time the prize will be presented at Gosford Regional Gallery, and it continues to grow in size and popularity every year.

The finalists exhibition is on until 9 November, 2025 at Gosford Regional Gallery.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
SALLY ANDERSON
‘November bells, BT mother, birth banksias, PP nude in a garden’ 2024
acrylic on polycotton,
183 x 198 cm

James Drinkwater stands out as a promising talent within the Australian art scene. Known for his dynamic paintings, Drinkwater brings an energetic approach to contemporary art that is both refreshing and impactful. His works are recognised for their vibrant colours and distinctive textures, adding layers of emotional depth and inviting viewers to explore their own responses to each piece. As a significant figure among emerging Australian artists, Drinkwater's art evokes curiosity and conversation.

In presenting his unique style, Drinkwater combines a rich palette with expressive brushwork. This combination results in paintings that feel alive with emotion, capturing stories and experiences through abstraction. His art reflects an innovative vision, turning everyday moments into powerful visual narratives. What makes his paintings especially accessible is how deeply personal yet relatable they are. He doesn’t complicate his art with technical distance. Instead, each piece draws people in, inviting interpretation and emotional response.

The Role of Colour in James Drinkwater's Work

Colour plays a central role in James Drinkwater’s artistic language. He uses it not just to fill space but to stir emotion, set the tone and ask questions. Rather than relying on defined forms, Drinkwater lets colour drive the response. His palette often feels spontaneous but is deeply considered. The placement and intensity of each hue are deliberate, sometimes loud and other times subtle, depending on the emotional pull of the piece.

Two of his paintings that showcase this are:

- A Burst of Joy: Bursting with oranges and yellows set against dusky blues, this painting conveys both high energy and quiet reflection. It feels like capturing a memory that’s bright but tinged with nostalgia.

- Melancholic Reflections: Muted greys and pale greens dominate here, creating a mood that’s softer and more introspective. It doesn’t try to explain itself but feels open to personal interpretation.

Through these works and others, Drinkwater demonstrates a strong belief in colour as emotion. He has a way of using hue and saturation to shape the mood without ever needing to define a subject clearly. That opens the door for the viewer to connect more freely. How they see the painting may depend on how they’re feeling in the moment, which is part of what gives his art depth and staying power.

Exploring Texture in Drinkwater's Paintings

James Drinkwater is known for the physicality in his work, and nothing captures that better than the textures he creates on canvas. Texture isn’t just a feature — it’s part of the emotion. His approach is tactile and highly instinctive, where movement in the application becomes part of the story. There’s no effort to hide brushstrokes, tool marks or layering. Instead, they’re central to the overall effect.

Drinkwater works quickly and with purpose, using a variety of tools like palette knives, brushes, rags and sometimes even his hands. He scrapes, builds, removes and re-applies. Paint goes on thick in one place, thin in another. And he often leaves parts of previous gestures visible under the new ones, like memories pushing up through the surface.

Here are five common ways texture shows up in his work:

1. Heavy build-ups of paint that rise off the canvas

2. Bold brushstrokes that carry the rhythm of his movement

3. Scraped-back sections that reveal earlier versions underneath

4. Contrasting materials such as charcoal or pencil for added grit

5. Abrupt changes in surface treatment to create tension

These textures do more than add visual interest. They give each work a kind of weight and presence that’s hard to ignore. It feels like you’re seeing the process as much as the result. That sense of honesty cuts through and helps viewers feel connected to the painting in a physical, hands-on way.

Influences and Inspirations

Behind Drinkwater’s creative style is a mix of personal history, Australian heritage and influences from other artists. He has spoken openly about the impact that growing up near the coast has had on his work. There’s an organic, weathered quality to many of his paintings that hints at salt air, open space and the passing of time. These aren’t literal landscapes, but the energy of place is there in the layered, shifting colours and rough surfaces.

He’s also been shaped by conversations with Australian modernists such as Albert Tucker or Sidney Nolan, whose work broke away from detailed representation to embrace mood, suggestion and national identity. Drinkwater builds on these ideas in his own way, adding intensity and immediacy through texture and scale.

Music and family life also play a role. Many of his works are inspired by moments of personal meaning — a memory, an emotion, or a fleeting idea. One painting combines aggressive reds and muted blacks to reflect what he once described as a “moment of deep personal conflict.” The raw arrangement of colours and textures creates a clash that’s hard to turn away from. You might not know exactly what it’s about, but you can feel the tension.

This blending of outside influence and internal experience makes his work feel grounded, but always driven by emotion. It reflects an artist who is willing to absorb and respond to the world around him without mimicking it.

The Impact of James Drinkwater on Contemporary Australian Art

James Drinkwater is a vital voice in contemporary Australian art. He's part of a growing group of artists who are rejecting polished realism in favour of expression, gesture and process. Rather than telling viewers what to see, he encourages them to explore what they feel.

His ability to fuse bold emotion with the memory of place gives his work an edge — something uniquely Australian, yet open to global conversations. Drinkwater’s paintings have featured alongside works by respected peers such as Sally Anderson, Vipoo Srivilasa, Miranda Skoczek, Jake Walker, Joanna Logue and Ross Laurie. Together, they represent a rich thread in modern Australian painting that values experimentation and emotional honesty.

Beyond his art, Drinkwater’s influence is felt in how he talks about making art. He’s open about the mess, the doubt, the breakthroughs — and that’s inspiring to emerging artists who might feel pressure to always be polished or conceptual. His approach suggests that real meaning can come from process, from risk, from pushing material around until it says something back to you.

In interviews and exhibitions alike, it becomes clear that he's not trying to build an image — he's trying to build a connection. That’s helped reshape how contemporary painting is seen in Australia today.

Experience James Drinkwater at Edwina Corlette Gallery

If you really want to understand James Drinkwater's work, it’s worth seeing it in person. Photos don’t do justice to the layers, the texture and the energy that comes through when you're standing in front of one of his paintings. The surfaces tell as much of a story as the image itself.

At Edwina Corlette Gallery in Brisbane, visitors have the chance to engage with Drinkwater’s art up close. Regular exhibitions feature his latest pieces either solo or alongside other contemporary Australian artists. These shows create a curated conversation between artists, allowing differences and similarities to play off each other and giving audiences a richer understanding of the broader art scene.

Whether an exhibition is focused solely on his work or thematic across multiple artists, Drinkwater’s paintings tend to stand out. Not because they’re louder, but because they feel true. They invite a longer look, or maybe even a second visit.

His paintings don’t just hang on the wall. They hold attention. They ask to be considered, not explained. And they offer something different each time you return to them. That’s part of what makes the experience so engaging for visitors and collectors alike. James Drinkwater’s work doesn’t fade into the background — it stays with you.

To explore more work that captures raw emotion through movement, colour and layered form, take a closer look at how James Drinkwater brings his creative process to life at Edwina Corlette.

Vipoo Srivilasa's upcoming exhibition at Edwina Corlette 'Iconic Figures: Devas, Deities and Divas' has been featured in an article for Colossal titled 'Terracotta and Gold Figures by Vipoo Srivilasa Conjure Joy and the Divine' by Grace Ebert. Colossal is an online art magazine that celebrates contemporary art and visual culture across a wide range of creative disciplines.

"Joy and the possibilities of creative communion ground the practice of Vipoo Srivilasa (previously). The artist, who lives and works between Australia and Thailand, is known for his ceramic sculptures that take an ebullient approach to life.

Standing between one and two feet tall, Srivilasa’s figures are clad in floral baubles, mandala-like motifs, and gold details, often with their fingers shaped like a V. The lively characters invoke both the mundane and the divine as they portray aspects of the spiritual world while firmly rooted on the earth."

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
About Colossal magazine, courtesy Colossal webpage.

We are delighted to share that James Drinkwater has been named a finalist in the 2025 Mosman Art Prize with his work Piano Nobile (reprise 1).

Now in its 78th year, the Mossman Art Prize is Australia’s longest running and most prestigious municipal painting award, providing a defining platform for contemporary Australian painting. The finalists’ exhibition is on view until 2 November.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
Piano Nobile (reprise 1) 2025
oil on linen

Vipoo Srivilasa's work Beneath the Love has been acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria, using funds donated by the Rob Gould Foundation.

Vipoo says of the work:

"Beneath the Tree of Love is my way of honoring love, commitment, and companionship. Inspired by the ceramic sculpture "The Music Lesson" from the Chelsea Porcelain Factory in the NGV collection, I wanted to blend old styles with a modern twist. This piece shows the close bond between two people and their pet, symbolizing unity and harmony in a loving relationship. It also shows a few pairs of animals who often visit my backyard. I hope the piece brings you the feelings of warmth and happiness. A celebration of love."

IMAGE:
Beneath the Tree of Love 2024
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with funds donated by Rob Gould Foundation
Image courtesy the artist

Congratulations to Bridie Gillman whose work 'Pink room, pink womb' has been selected as a finalist in the 2025 Ramsay Art Prize at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

The Ramsay Art Prize supports contemporary Australian artists under 40 to make their best work in any medium and of any scale. Supported in perpetuity by the James & Diana Ramsay Foundation, finalist works are selected by a panel of judges and shown at the Art Gallery of South Australia in a major exhibition opening 31 May, 2025.

IMAGE:

Bridie Gillman
Pink room, pink womb 2024
oil on canvas, timber, tufted wool, audio soundscape
202 x 190 x 162cm

We are delighted to share that Miranda Skoczek has been profiled in Marie Claire Australia. The feature offers a glimpse into her Camberwell apartment, where living space and studio merge to reflect her layered artistic vision.

“I’m a colourist, first and foremost. Colour is my main compositional language,” Skoczek notes, describing the vibrant and expressive world that informs her practice. She adds, “Every object tells a story … my paintings are also very much about places experienced and imagined.”

The article celebrates Skoczek’s distinctive use of colour, her love of collecting, and the intimate connection between her art and her surroundings.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

Marie-Claire article featuring Miranda Skoczek

Congratulations to Eliza Gosse, whose painting Flannel Flowers Under the Wattle Tree has been selected as a finalist in the 2025 Wynne Prize, on view at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from 10 May to 17 August.

In this evocative work, Gosse reimagines her grandparents’ Central Coast garden as a dreamlike landscape filled with native flora and the echoes of childhood memories. Drawing on imagery from mid-century design and magazines such as Australian House & Garden, she combines stylised architectural forms with the abundant textures of the bush – flannel flowers, grevilleas, kangaroo paws and towering gums. The result is a tender homage to the creativity and care of cultivated backyards, and a reflection on how these spaces shape both memory and identity.

This marks Gosse’s second time as a Wynne finalist, affirming her distinctive contribution to the depiction of Australian landscapes.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

ELIZA GOSSE
Flannel flowers under the wattle tree 2025
synthetic polymer paint on canvas, oil on birch plywood
183.4 x 152.7 cm

We are delighted to announce Sally Anderson’s inclusion in TENDER at Ngununggula in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.

TENDER is an annual exhibition committed to showcasing the work of Australian women artists.

'Tender' within this exhibition refers to the body, our gestures, and the way we feel or express ourselves. We impart the term on places, objects or surfaces to describe how they arouse our senses or how an object yields under pressure; it softens, loses shape, and gives way. This term has rich and varied meanings, and the aim of this exhibition is to explore its significance beyond a gender lens.

Sally Anderson’s work asks how one can hold households, partners, children, paintings, parents, and the self all at once. It reflects the ways motherhood, domesticity, and creative practice become reciprocal and inevitably entangled, each influencing and permeating the other. The work deliberately moves between abstraction and representation, using still-life and landscape motifs as symbols of containment and care.

The exhibition is current at Ngununggula 12 April - 15 June 2025

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
SALLY ANDERSON
Self and Still life (shared garden future nurture) 2024
acrylic on polycotton
183 x 165 cm

Bundit Puangthong has been working on multiple murals for Soi38's new location. Soi38 brings authentic Thai food to Melbourne, with distinct street food style architecture and seating. The restaurant thrived and became an institution. And its fiery salads, raw seafood and moo kata (Thai barbeque) helped kick off a new wave of Thai dining in Melbourne.

The mural has Bundit's distinct mix of bold street art and traditional Thai drawing on a monumental scale, featuring imagery of the monkey god 'Hanuman'.

"The walls are covered in swirling, star-studded murals by Melbourne-based Thai artist Bundit Puangthong, and a stainless steel bar anchors the room, allowing for an expanded drinks menu that includes Thai beers on tap, natural wines by the bottle, and a signature cocktail menu that features gin infused in-house with Thai ingredients like lemongrass, chilli and makrut lime."

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

Installation view, Bundit's Soi38 mural, courtesy Chege Mbuthi

"For Bridie Gillman’s latest exhibition Sight Lines at Edwina Corlette, Brisbane, the paintings invite a moment of pause. A moment to be in the landscape. Hear the wind and rain. Watch the shadows dance in the foliage. Gillman invited this energy in the repetition of line, form, and colour—translated from the rural typology. Engaging not only the senses we resonate with on an immediate basis (like smell, sight, touch, taste, hear), but also the ones we don’t—memory and emotion—for a tapping into the subconscious.

In her large-scale abstract paintings, Gillman presents her recollections of Bundjalung Country in Northern NSW. The landscape through the Tweed Valley—Brays Creek and Murwillumbah—and her observations of the winding 33km road between the two. One the artist comments is full of lines: ridge lines, fence lines, tree lines, shadow lines, sight lines, tyre lines, dotted lines, and solid lines. These are translated into fresh gestures, textured surfaces, and expressive mark making.

Vast in size at 168 x 213cm, Breathing in a cloud (2024) was one of the first artworks the usually based in Brisbane artist created on her residency in the country. After a time when she was struggling to create in her home studio in the city. Painting in a horse shed in Brays Creek, Gillman observed a sense of working in a micro-climate specific to her location up the mountain. The feeling of being in a cloud with the weather rolling through. The artwork, full of varying shades of grey, buzzing on the canvas, replicates the sense of drizzle and immersion in the elements.

With Gillman’s studio in the heart of Murwillumbah town, she builds on the canvases first worked on in the farm. In Between the lines (2025), 153 x 122cm, the artist has used old pieces of canvas, stitched together for a geometric abstract, in varying shades of green, thick with paint. The viewer may view the artworks as the artist views this rural landscape. Divided, gridded, agricultural, with light peeking through the composition. She comments that each painting starts with a specific memory or observation — holding an initial reference point and isolating the colours. Perhaps the ridge lines or the blues and purples of the eucalyptus mountains.

Paintings like Listening to the grass (2024) and Shifting shapes (2024) are full of dark and textured mark making, quickly worked and full of energy. More so than the artist’s other series of works. Here, the artist reveals her interest in exploring new methodologies of mark-making. What before would be painted out, are now held onto. The artworks reveal the action, the moment of life they are created within, and the moment they set out to capture. Painting, sewing, drawing, and sanding back are all used on the surface. Colour pulled forwards and pulled back, adding depth and that sense of looking through the landscape at the light and shadow that form.

Completely green with darkly worked lines, Listening to the grass evokes being in the landscape during the day. But Shifting shapes represents the isolation of the country at night and the sense you get from being the only person around. Gillman says this work is like night vision; your eyes adjust to the light and the dark. Where things move and push in and out, a vibration. Shapes becoming other. In particular as she notes her isolation in these new places. Away from people. Immersed in the landscape.

Here is where the magic of Sight Lines is revealed as Gillman captures her sense of being light and unburdened, and completely alone, in awe of the environment with time to reflect. We are witness to how art allows for a tapping, an entering, of another realm, where reality and fiction intermingle with memory and emotion."

Written by Emma-Kate Wilson for Art Almanac

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

BRIDIE GILLMAN
That Purple Storm Approaching 2025
oil on linen
61 x 51cm

Bundit Puangthong has been teaching crowds of visitors this week in the National Gallery of Victoria's 'Drop By Drawing' sessions. Occurring every Saturday during their summer program, the drawing sessions encourage members of the public to learn new tips, tricks, and drawing techniques from renowned artists, taking inspiration from the Gallery's collection.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

Drop By Drawing session at NGV, 2025, courtesy Michael Pham

We are thrilled to congratulate Pia Murphy on being awarded the 2025 Visual Arts Fellowship through the Edward F. Albee Foundation, granting her a month-long residency at The Barn in Montauk, New York. Founded in 1967 by Edward Albee, the foundation supports artists bi-annually, providing time, space, and resources to foster creative development.

For her residency in April, Murphy made the move from her home studio in Birregurra, Victoria to the Montauk studio whereby she explored her abstracted, layered approach to painting in a new and illuminating landscape. Her practice evolves through playful exploration and discovery, reflecting a deep curiosity and delight in unexpected moments. Influenced by the colours and textures of her surrounding landscapes, Murphy’s current focus is painting, building on her background in printmaking and ceramics.

The works produced during this residency will feature in her upcoming solo exhibition, Omnivorous Cast, at Edwina Corlette Gallery from 8–28 October.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

Pia Murphy in her studio, courtesy Rhys Lee

Eliza Gosse is exhibiting in Seoul this month, alongside three other international artists in an exhibition titled 'Naive Realism'. The show reinterprets still life painting through architectural scenes from the everyday. The four artists aim to remove meaning from historical objects in order to provoke personal memories and reflections from the viewer.

Eliza Gosse's contribution is two acrylic paintings on canvas, and two gouache paintings on paper, each titled in response to moments of solitude in her home.

The exhibition is open 27 December, 2024 until 2 February, 2025.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

Eliza Gosse

'Kumquats in the Courtyard' 2024

acrylic on canvas

137 x 112 cm

Image Courtesy the artist and Art Space Howha

In a new book dedicated to the creative environments of Sunshine Coast Artists, Stefan Dunlop has been featured. The book includes a stunning collection of photographs from each artists studios, taken by Christine Hall, as well as audio from the artists. Stefan Dunlop's bright, airy workspace as seen in Hall's photographs is in harmony with his bold, colourful, and confident canvases.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

1/ Cover of 'The Studio Project', courtesy Christine Hall

2/ Stefan Dunlop in his studio, courtesy Christine Hall

Congratulations to Vipoo Srivilasa for his exhibition ‘re/JOY’, which is currently at the Australian Design Centre and touring across five states over the next three years. These statues, standing 1.5 metres tall, centre a collection of broken ceramic pieces that were personally significant to a range of families and their experiences of migration. Fragments of teapots, tiles, and bowls from across the world are included in this reimagining of strength, community, and healing. The creation of these figures was inspired by a previous project of Srivilasa’s (of the same name - re/JOY) in Warrnambool, repairing people's broken ceramics that were too sentimental to be thrown away. Srivilasa continuously brings new life and joy to old pottery.

The exhibition is currently on at the Australian Design Centre, Sydney until 19 February 2025. The exhibition will tour Australia from 2025 to 2027.

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Ari Athans whose work ‘A ripple and a rock’, made in collaboration with Urban Art Projects is now installed at Wentworth Point in Sydney.

This work is inspired by sedimentary rocks such as sandstone and shale which make up the ripple valley of Sydney Harbour.

Seeking to re-invoke the soft and natural elements of the area, ‘A ripple and a rock’ signals a place and a point of arrival along the urban coastline. The forms appear to have tumbled together and washed ashore, their shape framing the bay and supporting view lines across the water.

- Ari Athans


IMAGE:

Ari Athans

A ripple and a rock 2024

sandstone, cast aluminium, fabricated steel

dimensions variable

Congratulations to Bridie Gillman who is a finalist in the 2024 Redland Art Awards with her work 'See from sky'.

The Redland Art Awards is a biennial contemporary painting competition open to all Australian artists, presented by Redland Art Gallery.

The finalists exhibition will be held at the Redland Art Gallery, opening Friday 6 December 2024.

IMAGE:

Bridie Gillman

See from sky 2024

oil on canvas

153 x 137 cm

READ MORE HERE

Eliza Gosse recently completed a week as artist in residence at Bundanon

‘I spent the week painting on ceramics taking inspiration from this landscape. The Boyd family have such a rich history with pottery so was an inspiring place to do so.’

The Artist in Residence program is a pillar of Bundanon, an organisation created to support creativity and learning in a unique cultural and natural landscape.

‘A place for the community to enjoy the bush and the river, and a place to be used as a forum where those from every facet from the arts and sciences could get together.’ - Arthur Boyd

This competitive residency program is made possible by the generous contribution of Arthur and Yvonne Boyd to the Australian public. Established in 1997, it has grown to become the largest program of its kind in Australia, hosting over 250 artists annually.

IMAGE:

Eliza painting ceramics at Bundanon

We are delighted to share the recent publication of ‘Vipoo Srivilasa: Positive Art Work’. This comprehensive monograph celebrates over 25 years of Vipoo Srivilasa’s influential career in ceramics.

Known for his accessible, positive, and beautiful work, Vipoo’s art reflects his life in both Australia and Thailand, using clay to tell stories and bring people together.

The essays have been contributed by:
Alice Pung: Writer and editor
Glenn Barkley: Artist, writer, and curator
Samantha Littley: Curator, Australian Art, QAGOMA
Lisa Cahill: CEO and Artistic Director, Australian Design Centre
Tiffany Johnson: Publisher and author

Published by Paper Boat Press Edition and The Australia Design Center

READ MORE HERE

IMAGES:

1/ Front cover of 'Vipoo Srivilasa: Positive Artwork'

2/ Example Spread of 'Vipoo Srivilasa: Positive Artwork'

We are thrilled to share that John Bokor is a finalist in the 2024 Kedumba Drawing Prize with his work 'After the Feast'.

The Kedumba Drawing Award is a $20,000 acquisitive award open to resident Australian artists working in the broad sphere of drawing. The winning work will become a permanent part of The Kedumba Collection, which is considered to be the most important collection of Australian drawings outside the National Gallery.

The finalists exhibition will be held from 17 November - 15 December, Kedumba Gallery, NSW

IMAGE:

John Bokor

After the Feast 2024

charcoal, wash and collage

71 x 90cm

READ MORE HERE

Four of Sally M Nangala Mulda's paintings are the focal point of the current exhibition at the University of Queensland Art Museum 'Dusk of Nations'. The exhibition featured works from Australian-based artists exploring the resistance, subversion, and defence of nationhood. The selected works survey varying perspectives of national identity and highlight the importance of recognising these differences of experience.

“Scenes of communal joy and peace are hung alongside scenes of housing insecurities, domestic violence and police brutality. Through her paintings, Mulda generously offers us a glimpse of her community – a place of both injustice and hope.”

It was wonderful to see Sally’s paintings of her life in Mpwetyerre represented in this thought-provoking exhibition.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGES:
Installation views of ‘Dusk of Nations’, UQ Art Museum 2024. Image courtesy Joe Ruckli

Congratulations to Sally Anderson who is a finalists in the 2024 Portia Geach Memorial Award with her work ‘Self and still life (shared garden, future nurture)'.

The Portia Geach Memorial Award was established in 1965 to be annually presented to an Australian female artist. Portia Geach was an iconic figure in the Australian arts community, acclaimed for her art and media presence, and as such the award was created in her honour. The award is specifically for the best portrait painted from the life of someone well renowned in art, academia, or science.

Finalists exhibition will be held at the S.H Ervin Gallery, 25 October – 15 December 2024, Sydney

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
Sally Anderson
Self and still life (shared garden, future nurture) 2024
acrylic on polycotton
183 x 198cm

ELIZA GOSSE features in the Spring issue of STYLE. Eliza is included in a portfolio of Sydney’s most inspiring talent, a portfolio ranging from restauranteurs to textile makers. Read about Eliza’s practice in the most recent issue of STYLE, available now.

Eliza Gosse is a finalist in the Fisher Ghost Award with her work They Held Their Pose Longer After What Was Necessary.

IMAGE:

They Held Their Pose Longer After What Was Necessary 2024
oil on birchply cutout
167 x 100 cm

Aligned with his recent show at Edwina Corlette Gallery, Rhys Lee opens up to Tom Gerrard about his painting practice, upbringing, and the behind the scenes of his exhibitions.

LISTEN HERE

IMAGE:

Rhys Lee
Big Fight (Undefeated) 2024
oil on canvas
205 x 156 cm

Image used on the cover of this Bench Talk podcast episode.

We are thrilled to congratulate Bridie Gillman on being selected as a finalist in the 2024 John Leslie Art Prize with her painting ‘Hanging, holding.’

The $20,000 Acquisitive Prize is named after John Leslie OBE (1919—2016), Patron of the Gippsland Art Gallery and celebrates landscape painting by Australian artists.

Bridie’s work will be on exhibition amongst the other finalists from 7 September to 24 November at the Gippsland Art Gallery, in Sale, Victoria.

Image courtesy Louis Lim

IMAGE:

Bridie Gillman

Hanging, holding 2024

oil on canvas

137 x 198cm

READ MORE HERE

Curated by Vipoo Srivilasa, ‘Generation Clay: Reimagined Asian Heritage’, opens on Saturday 3 August at Bunjil Place, Victoria.

‘Generation Clay: Reimagining Asian Heritage’ is an exhibition celebrating the vibrant versatility of clay, presented by a new generation of Asian-Australian contemporary artists. Together, these artists are reimagining traditional and ceramic forms in ways that resonate with our current moment.

This exhibition will engage with a multiplicity of concepts – from personal histories and memories, cultural heritage and family ties to mythological and popular culture narratives. Curated by Vipoo Srivilasa, a recognised leader in the field of ceramics, ‘Generation Clay’ started with fourteen artists from across Australia being invited to create a new work using a palette of predominantly blue and white. The colour blue is also a unifying feature of the exhibition’s design, alluding to the wider discourses of blue and white patterning, it’s connections to global movement and its reinterpretation and translation through form and motif over time.

Nestled in the heart of the exhibition is ‘The Bloom Room’ a special making area where exhibition visitors can participate in a range of changing monthly activities, from hand-crafting origami flowers and tiny clay objects, to sharing secret powers and stories, ‘The Bloom Room’ is your space to create, connect and collaborate with the artworks and artists featured in ‘Generation Clay’.

3 August - 24 November 2024
Bunjil Place Gallery, Narre Warren, Victoria

READ MORE HERE

We are thrilled to announce that Vipoo Srivilasa’s interactive exhibition, “Marvellous Mythical Mates,” opens at Counihan Gallery in Melbourne this Saturday 3 August, 2024.

The exhibition explores the theme of belonging. Inspired by the sights, sounds, smells, and textures of Merri-bek, attendees are encouraged to create their own mythical dream pets from clay. Whether your pet dings like the Number 19 tram or gurgles like the Merri Creek, the possibilities are endless.

Contribute to a growing menagerie of Merri-bek creatures by proudly displaying your dream pet in the gallery. With every passing day, new creations will emerge, transforming the exhibition into a living habitat for fantastical companions!

Join the opening ceremony on Saturday, August 10 from 2 – 4pm.

The exhibition is current until October 27, 2024

READ MORE HERE

James Drinkwater has featured in ART-CLE Issue 02, 2024:

Known for his raucous yet meticulously composed paintings, James Drinkwater is one of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary artists. Yet, the words ‘contemporary’ and ‘artist’ are not necessarily ones Drinkwater would use to describe himself. He prefers the term ‘painter’, and he is a gestural one at that, drawing on influences from the vast legacy of Australian, British, American and French modern art he became obsessed with as a child growing up in Newcastle, New South Wales. Drinkwater says he started drawing and painting incessantly from the age of five, after becoming taken with the small landscape paintings his aunt would work on at her kitchen table.

Drinkwater’s talent was recognised and nurtured early on, not just by his parents and those around him but also by the art world itself. During our conversation, he fields a call from his dad, who wants to come around and see his recent paintings. “It’s never ideal, the time he wants to come,” Drinkwater says after hanging up. “But I’m never going to say no to that, it’s fuel. You talk about fathers not approving of their kids doing art… artists like Clarice Beckett, you know. My dad was there in the garage with me, standing with a ciggy and a chardonnay just going, ‘Oh, bloody brilliant James. Brilliant. Michelle, come look!’

Between the ages of eight and eighteen, he attended Ron Hartree’s now-closed art school in Newcastle and visited exhibitions whenever his parents could take him. He later attended the National Art School in Sydney—only for one year, before getting restless—and then moved to Melbourne, where he met his now-wife, the painter and performance artist Lottie Consalvo. The pair soon moved to Berlin, where they lived for three years before relocating back to Newcastle in search of cheaper studio space and a quieter life.

In 2014, aged thirty, he won the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, which took his family— then-newly expanded to three with the arrival of his first child, Vincenzo—to the Cité des Arts in Paris for three months and a further three travelling. Fast forward to June 2023, almost a decade on, and a survey exhibition at Canberra’s Drill Hall Gallery—James Drinkwater: at mid-career, curated by Terence Maloon—announced without hesitation Drinkwater’s arrival at that often tenuous artistic milestone.

Drinkwater’s paintings are defined by their expressive use of colour. They are rich in matter, working texture and colour into abstract yet familiar figures, landscapes and interiors that speak of his experiences both real and imagined. In subject, his work draws heavily on the intimacy of his family life, the oceanic environment in which he lives, the broader Australian landscape and the people and places with which he interacts in his movements and travels. As was the case for the 20th century painters Drinkwater has so admired, his own exploration of this personal iconography at once allows insight into his subjective experience and offers something of our shared world to dive into.

- Emma Pegrum, ART-CLE

IMAGE:

James Drinkwater, courtesy Nic Gossage

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Vipoo Srivilasa who has been invited to present his interactive art exhibition ‘Flower Bear Deity’ at the Fremantle Arts Centre as the lead artist for the 2024 Indian Ocean Craft Triennial (IOTA). The exhibition will run from 16 August - 20 October 2024.

The Indian Ocean Triennial Australia (IOTA) is a not-for-profit arts organisation based in Perth, Western Australia. IOTA presents the extraordinary work of contemporary artists and artisans from around the region; particularly those who build on the traditional skills and mediums of craft practices.

READ MORE HERE

Curated by Vipoo Srivilasa, ‘Generation Clay: Reimagined Asian Heritage’, opens on Saturday 3 August at Bunjil Place, Victoria.

‘Generation Clay: Reimagining Asian Heritage’ is an exhibition celebrating the vibrant versatility of clay, presented by a new generation of Asian-Australian contemporary artists. Together, these artists are reimagining traditional and ceramic forms in ways that resonate with our current moment.

This exhibition will engage with a multiplicity of concepts – from personal histories and memories, cultural heritage and family ties to mythological and popular culture narratives. Curated by Vipoo Srivilasa, a recognised leader in the field of ceramics, ‘Generation Clay’ started with fourteen artists from across Australia being invited to create a new work using a palette of predominantly blue and white. The colour blue is also a unifying feature of the exhibition’s design, alluding to the wider discourses of blue and white patterning, it’s connections to global movement and its reinterpretation and translation through form and motif over time.

Nestled in the heart of the exhibition is ‘The Bloom Room’ a special making area where exhibition visitors can participate in a range of changing monthly activities, from hand-crafting origami flowers and tiny clay objects, to sharing secret powers and stories, ‘The Bloom Room’ is your space to create, connect and collaborate with the artworks and artists featured in ‘Generation Clay’.

“I have brought together some of the most exciting ceramic talent and together we are creating, what I believe, is a first-of-its-kind exhibition – Asian Australian ceramicists interpreting the blue and white palette in new ways,” said Vipoo Srivilasa.

“I have also worked with the Asian diaspora on the exhibition design, construction, writing and photography of the show. The works, along with the participatory nature of the exhibition is something that I’m very proud of.’’

Bunjil Place Gallery, Narre Warren, Victoria, 3 August - 24 November 2024

Image courtesy Jessica Tremp

READ MORE HERE

James Drinkwater's new publication 'I Love You More Than Paintings. Works 2008-2024' has been released. Containing a comprehensive survey of James Drinkwater's artworks to date, as well as writings from Louise Martin-Chew, Ineke Dane, and Nicholas Thompson.

“James Drinkwater paintings are physical, muscular, messy - articulating something that Picasso started - blending nameable and unnameable or recognisable imagery with nondescript painted signs, dancing in a frenetic ballet of attack after attack, sometimes confounding sometimes parting the seas of expression to a clear cohesive rhythm where painted cacophony reigns, not over matter but out of matter. Personal, familial, local of somewhere faraway and right around the corner.”

Julian Schnabel

IMAGE:

Cover of 'I Love You More Than Paintings. Works 2008-2024' by James Drinkwater

READ MORE HERE

Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery has opened 'News from Nowhere', a lively two-person exhibition bringing together Melbourne artist Brendan Huntley and jeweller Lisa Walker. Despite working in distinct mediums, both artists embrace imperfection and humour as central creative forces.

Huntley’s contribution anchors the exhibition with paintings, objects and works on paper that feature his distinctive, emotive faces and handmade sensibility. His practice—rooted in instinct, material curiosity and a playful push-pull between craft and fine art—invites visitors into a space of reflection rather than resolution. The works hover between personal narrative and abstraction, prompting viewers to consider their relationships with people, objects and themselves. Together, Huntley and Walker's works invite viewers into open-ended encounters, which prompt reflection on how we relate to each other, the things we make, and the things we keep close. The exhibition highlights both artists’ deep engagement with craft and the body, celebrating the human impulse to create and the meaning that emerges in the process.

Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery is the largest public gallery in Melbourne’s south-east and has a curatorial focus on commissioning artists who engage with contemporary issues and the region’s unique environment, offering audiences a generous, open-ended encounter with varied artists.

The exhibition is open 22 June - 18 August 2024 at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

Installation image of Brendan Huntley's work in 'News from Nowhere' at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, courtesy Mark Ashkanasy

Congratulations Eliza Gosse whose portrait of Australian designer Emma Mulholland is a finalist in this year's Salon des Refusés. 'Emma and Norby on holiday' is now hanging at S.H. Ervin Gallery until 25 August, 2024.


The Salon des Refusés was initiated by the S.H. Ervin Gallery in 1992 in response to the large number of works entered into the Archibald Prize which were not selected for display in the official exhibition.

Each year the Salon des Refusés panel is invited to go behind the scenes of the judging process for the annual Archibald Prize for portraiture and Wynne Prize for landscape painting and figure sculpture at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, to select an exhibition from the many hundreds of works entered in both prizes but not chosen for the official award exhibition. The Salon des Refusés exhibition has established an excellent reputation that rivals the selections in the ‘official’ exhibition, with works selected for quality, diversity, humour and experimentation, and which examine contemporary art practices, different approaches to portraiture and responses to the landscape.

- S. H Erving Gallery

IMAGE:

Eliza Gosse

'Emma and Norby on holiday' 2024

oil on birch plywood

180 x 115 cm

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations Vipoo Srivilasa whose work ‘Memory’ (2018) forms part of the Namedropping exhibition at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart. This expansive exhibition presents around 200 artworks and objects, examining the realm of status, influence and the power we place in a name.

‘Memory’ (2018) consists of five porcelain and cobalt pigment figures with gold lustre details, housed in wooden structures. Each figure relates to a childhood sporting memory from the artist and features different sporting equipment or uniforms to reflect this. The porcelain statues are each mounted in uniform L-shaped wooden blocks, inspired by an old trophy from the Australian Sport Museum collection.

On now and current until 21 April 2025.

IMAGE:

‘Memory’ (2018)

porcelain and cobalt pigment figures with gold lustre details

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations Vipoo Srivilasa whose work is featured in the Australian Design Centre On Tour exhibition SIXTY: The Journal of Australian Ceramics 60th Anniversary 1962–2022. Vipoo's 2019 ceramic 'Dvarapala (Ta-waa-ra-baan), Door Guardian Porter' is currently on show at Design Tasmania in Launceston until 21 July 2024.

The exhibition is presented by Australian Design Centre in partnership with The Australian Ceramics Association (TACA) to acknowledge this significant anniversary for the ceramics community in Australia.

"For this show, I created a pair of friendly Dvarapala. They do not only ward off evil spirits but also welcome visitors. Instead of holding a club, they offer flowers and leave to visitors. Both of my Davrapala come with their own “vahana “ or animal- vehicle which they travel on and keep their company. Both animals, cat and dog are the most popular pets in the world. They are not only our great companion but also a guard for our house and a therapy to heal our spirit."

READ MORE HERE

Image:
VIPOO SRIVILASA
Dvarapala (Ta-waa-ra-baan), Door Guardian Porter series 2019
stoneware, underglaze, gold lustre, acrylic, mixed media

Miranda Skoczek has been a guest on ABC Radio National, delving into the new direction of her current exhibition at Post Space in Exeter, England. In a vibrant conversation with Kimberly Price, Miranda explains the deeply personal body of work, and her distinctive abstract painting.

LISTEN HERE

IMAGE:

Miranda Skoczek with her exhibition 'Red Ribbons', Post Space, Exeter, courtesy the artist

We are thrilled to announce that Sally M Nangala Mulda has been selected as a finalist in the Sir John Sulman Prize with her work 'Amoonguna long time ago'.

We stay at Amoonguna long time ago. We went on the train to Maryvale.

Sally M Nangala Mulda, 2024

Sally M Nangala Mulda’s work is a form of documentary storytelling. In this painting, she references a time in the 1960s when her family moved to Amoonguna Aboriginal Reserve about 15 kilometres east-south-east of Mparntwe/Alice Springs, so the children could attend school. Sally was born in the camp of Aboriginal stock and station homestead workers on Maryvale cattle station. That camp was recognised as Aboriginal Land in 1978, and the residents have transformed it into the idyllic Titjikala community within easy walking distance of the old homestead.

Tangentyere Artists, 2024

READ MORE HERE

Artwork:

'Amoonguna long time ago' 2024

acrylic on linen

51 x 122 cm

Delighted to announce that Sally Anderson has been selected as a finalist in the Sir John Sulman Prize with her work ‘Holding a hurricane, quilt curtain carrying the sea’.

How do you hold a hurricane? How do you hold close things that are spiralling out of your control? Can you contain the sea in a quilt? How do we measure domestic, creative and maternal labour? With time? How does one get more time in a day? How do we hold households, partners, children, paintings, parents and ourselves simultaneously? This painting speaks to the ways motherhood, domesticity and creative practice are, for me, reciprocal and ultimately entangled. Each informs and infects the other. This work deliberately dances between abstraction and representation and employs still-life and landscape motifs as symbols of containment and care.

- Sally Anderson, 2024

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
SALLY ANDERSON
Holding a hurricane, quilt curtain carrying the sea 2024
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
182.5 x 198.2 cm

Congratulations Sally Anderson who is a finalist in the 2024 Bayside Painting Prize for her 2024 work ‘Placenta banksia, Bridal Veil Falls view, the sea in me, PB nude quilt tablecloth’. Established in 2015, the Bayside Painting Prize is one of the most generous non-acquisitive painting prizes in Australia. The exhibition draws together a breadth of artists with varied approaches to painting. This allows the Bayside City Council to further develop its collection and promote artists to the Bayside community.

The finalist exhibition will be held at Bayside Gallery from 3 May to 23 June 2024.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
SALLY ANDERSON
Placenta banksia, Bridal Veil Falls view, the sea in me, PB nude quilt tablecloth 2024
acrylic on polycotton
168 x 137 cm

Image courtesy the artist and Jessica Maurer

Ross Laurie's painting 'Long day blues - evening light' is featuring in Homegrown Wynne, a travelling exhibition of previous Wynne Prize winners.

The Wynne Prize is Australia's oldest art prize with the inaugural award being presented in 1897. It is now an annual competition of Australian landscape and figure painting, judged by the trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

In 2016 Ross Laurie's painting was a finalist in the Wynne Prize.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

Ross Laurie

'Long day blues - evening light' 2016

oil on canvas

137.5 x 305 cm

At the time they both connected over their love for nature and now, roughly 10 years later Miranda has collaborated with Katie [Kolodinski] to curate The Protection Collection. Centred around symbolism and the rituals of self-protection including the iconic Aster flower, central to Katie’s upbringing, this was a harmonious alignment given Miranda’s style of art which is deeply influenced by historical references and ancient cultures.

For Miranda, her art allows people to explore other worlds and she hopes that placing her designs on clothing encourages people to have those conspectus conversations as well.

In line with this creative endeavour, she shared insights on her practices, creating the collection and her relationship with symbolism.

- Silk Laundry

IMAGE:

Courtesy Silk Laundry

READ MORE HERE

James Drinkwater is included in the 2023 Salon des Refusés with his painting 'Your world is ever new' (2022).

On view at the S. H. Ervin Gallery, Millers Point, Sydney

IMAGE:
James Drinkwater
'Your world is ever new' 2022
oil on linen
138 x 168 cm

Congratulations to Bridie Gillman who is a finalist for the The Elaine Bermingham National Watercolour Prize for her work 'Night Lines'.

Celebrating excellence and innovation in the watercolour medium, this non-acquisitive prize offers a winning of $20,000 generously donated by Elaine Bermingham.

Selected finalists will be exhibited at QCA Galleries, located within Griffith University’s Queensland College of Art and Design at South Bank, Brisbane from 30 November 2023 - 11 January 2024.

IMAGE

Bridie Gillman

Night Lines 2023

watercolour and ink on linen

102 x 115cm

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Vipoo Srivilasa has won the Civic Choice Award as part of the 2023 Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture.

The annual Melbourne Prize, now in its 19th year, continues its objective to provide opportunities to Victorian writers, musicians and for 2023, sculptors, demonstrating the importance of recognising and rewarding creative talent.

Artists practicing in expanded fields of sculpture, including public installation, new media, performance, sound-based and socially engaged practice were encouraged to apply, plus entries from artists at all stages of their practice, including First Nations people and artists from all genders and cultural, linguistic and diverse backgrounds.

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Congratulations to Sally Anderson, who has been announced as a finalist in the Grace Cossington Smith Art Award for her painting 'Nat Silk’s Seatown Still Life, PB Nude Quilt, Bromeliad Washdown'.

The biennial Grace Cossington Smith Art Award is a $20,000 National acquisitive award. The award theme is 'Making Connections' inspired by the work of Abbotsleigh graduate and artist Grace Cossington Smith - renowned for her Modern abstraction paintings of Australia. The finalist exhibition opens 27 January 2024 at the Grace Cossington Smith Gallery, Wahroonga, Sydney.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
SALLY ANDERSON
Nat Silk's Seatown Still Life, PB Nude Quilt, Bromeliad Washdown 2023
acrylic on polycotton
153 x 137 cm

We are thrilled to announce that ELIZA GOSSE has been selected as a finalist in the 2023 Paddington Art Prize for her work 'Greenwell Point'

The Paddington Art Prize is a $30,000 National acquisitive prize, awarded annually for a painting inspired by the Australian landscape.

IMAGE:

Eliza Gosse

Greenwell Point 2023

Gouache on paper

28 x 28 cm

READ MORE HERE

Bridie Gillman is a finalist in the 2023 Girra: Fraser Coast National Art Prize for her work 'Quiet, after the storm' (2023).

The inaugural Girra: Fraser Coast National Art Prize is a major acquisitive prize of $25,000, that seeks to explore our reciprocal and inextricable relationship with the environment through contemporary art.

Selected artworks provide unique perspectives on industrialised landscapes, the forces of extreme weather events, our relationship to domestic gardens, ecological concerns and speculative solutions, ruminations on the beauty and power of nature, and much more.

The finalists’ exhibition, is held at the Hervey Bay Regional Gallery 23 September to 12 November 2023

IMAGE:

Bridie Gillman

Quiet, after the storm 2022

Oil on linen, glazed ceramics and soundscape

various dimensions

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VIPOO SRIVILASA has been selected as one of the four finalists in the $60,000 Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture 2023.

READ MORE HERE

Rhys Lee is featured in Issue 42 of Beautiful Bizarre.

Leesa Hickey, Director of Side Gallery in Australia, has selected 8 works in the market that she wishes to add to her personal collection. Amongst these 8 works is Rhys Lee's 2021 Polkadot Robe.

IMAGE:

Rhys Lee

Polkadot Robe 2021

oil on canvas

95 x 78 cm

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to our artist John Bokor who is a finalists in this year's Mosman Art Prize for his work 'The Flowering Plant'. Exhibition open 23 September in Mosman, Sydney.

IMAGE:
John Bokor
The Flowering Plant 2023
oil on board
140 x 120 cm

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to our artist Eliza Gosse who is a finalists in this year's Mosman Art Prize for her work 'We Climbed the Fence and Swam in Their Pool'. Exhibition open 23 September in Mosman, Sydney.

IMAGE:

Eliza Gosse

We Climbed the Fence and Swam in Their Pool 2023

gouache on paper

39 x 39 cm

READ MORE HERE

Artist Carbiene McDonald Tjangala has been named a finalist in the 2023 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA) for his painting 'Four Dreamings'. The work, which draws on four Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) stories inherited from his father, continues to establish McDonald Tjangala as a compelling story-teller in contemporary Indigenous art.

Now in its 40th year, the Telstra NATSIAA is Australia’s longest running and most prestigious Indigenous art award, celebrating the very best of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artistic practice. Each year, the exhibition showcases an exceptional breadth of work, including painting, sculpture, multimedia, and textile, highlighting both established artists and exciting new talent. The Papunya Tjupi-based artist has been recognised for his commitment to honouring cultural knowledge while developing a distinctly contemporary visual language.

As part of the 2023 awards, audiences can experience the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art making through the finalists’ exhibition at Darwin's Museum and Gallery of the Northern Territory.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

Installation image of 2023 Telstra NATSIAA finalists exhibition at the Museum and Gallery of the Northern Territory.

Bridie Gillman completed a residency at Córtex Frontal, for a 6 week placement in an 18^th century building located in Arraiolos, Alentejo, Southern Portugal, in April 2023.

Córtex Frontal is a multidisciplinary cultural project created in 2016 by the Cultural Association Córtexcult, in Arraiolos, Évora, Alentejo. The artists in residence program aims to provide the time and space to develop a project, fostering the sharing of experiences between artists and the community.

Bridie's new body of work directly inspired by her time spent at Córtex Frontal will be exhibited in her upcoming show, Watching Walls at Edwina Corlette Gallery 4 October - 24 October 2023.

Córtex Frontal is part of the Portuguese Contemporary Art Networks RPAC.

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations VIPOO SRIVILASA who has been shortlisted for the prestigious Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award for his work The Kiln God Altar. Vipoo has been selected as one of the 40 finalists out of 422 entries.

The selection process was led by a panel of judges, including the renowned Australian artist Lisa Roet, the esteemed Curator Antony Fitzpatrick from TarraWarra Museum of Art, and the representative from Deakin University, Leanne Willis.

The finalist’s exhibition will open to the public on Wednesday 23 August at the Deakin University Art Gallery and the launch and announcement of winners will take place on Thursday 31 August.

Vipoo Srivilasa

'Kiln God Altar' 2023

A collection of Kiln Gods, created with various clay types, techniques, firing range and artistic style, symbolises the diversity within the clay community.

Displayed together on one stand, they represent unity, interconnection and shared spiritual traditions among clay workers worldwide.

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Sally Anderson is featured in the July/August edition of Art Guide Australia.

Motherhood, domesticity, landscape, memory—these are just some of the experiences and memories Sally Anderson has captured in her two-decade painting practice, underpinned by a persistent blue.

The outer edges of Sally Anderson’s paintings reveal multiple layers of canvas, the evidence of past works painted over yet still present deep within. Integral to how Anderson works, this layering connects to ideas of containment and the action of being physically held. “This could refer to a mother carrying her baby, being restricted to the home, a vessel holding flowers, frames, windows or pools,” she says.

- Briony Downes, Art Guide, 2023

IMAGE:

Sally Anderson in her Studio, courtesy Jessica Mauer

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James Drinkwater At Mid Career curated by Terence Maloon, Drill Hall Gallery, ANU Canberra

'Early recognised as an exceptional talent, James Drinkwater has never toned-down the intensity and bravura of his approach to painting. His work has mined a vast legacy of modern art – Australian, British, American, French – as if all of it remains relevant, fresh and available to him. Now, on the brink of turning 40, this is the first survey of his prodigious past. While his paintings evoke figures, landscapes and interiors, they are also meticulously composed abstractions, distinctive for their complex and opulent fusion of texture, colour and spatial intrigue.'

Exhibition current from 24 June - 20 August, 2023

IMAGE:

Installation view James Drinkwater 'At Mid Career' curated by Terence Maloon.

We are clumsy now on this southern beach 2016

mixed media on board

140 x 120 cm

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Grace Ebert featured Vipoo Srivilasa's exhibition 'Solitude and Connection' in the article 'Exquisite Porcelain Figures by Vipoo Srivilasa Express the Ineffable Nature of Beauty and Connection'.

"Flowers in gold lustre and cobalt, small portraits of mythical creatures with feathers and polka dots, and various geometric motifs embellish Vipoo Srivilasa’s porcelain figures, which celebrate abundance and joy through opulent details. On view now at Edwina Corlette in the artist’s solo show Solitude and Connection, the sculptures are otherworldly in form as they meld human anatomy with flora and fauna, exploring 'the diverse ways in which love takes shape.'"

READ MORE HERE

Arrernte and Southern Luritja artist Sally M Nangala Mulda alongside Arrernte and Western Arrarnta artist Marlene Rubuntja have developed their practice to be completely recognisable and representative of the place in which they live, Mparntwe/Alice Springs. Working from Tangentyere Artists and Yarrenyty Arltere Artists (art centres), these senior women have established themselves as two of Australia’s leading visual artists.

The third Artbank + ACMI Commission, Two Girls From Amoonguna, encompasses video, soft sculpture and paintings, with the centerpiece the animated work titled Arrkutja Tharra, Kungka Kutjara, Two Girls.

Arrkutja Tharra, Kungka Kutjara, Two Girls delves into the reality of First Peoples’ experiences in Central Australia by chronicling the artists’ successes and struggles. The work centres Sally and Marlene’s voices, as well as the voices of their younger family members, who can be heard in the animation. It was made in collaboration with Ludo Studio, the Emmy-award winning production company behind Bluey, Robbie Hood and The Strange Chores, along with script writer Courtney Collins, Left of Elephant Sound and Tangentyere Artists producer Ellanor Webb.

Figures from Marlene’s soft sculptures and Sally’s acrylic on linen paintings star in the animation, embedded on top of Marlene’s ink on paper works of the Central Australian landscape. Bringing together both artists’ practice, Sally’s iconic cursive painted lettering produce the subtitles.

Having grown up at the Amoonguna Settlement outside of Mparntwe/Alice Springs in the early 1960s, the two friends wouldn’t reconnect until much later in life, after both of them had seen their fair amount of hardships; now having achieved so much, they are immensely proud of one another.

Two Girls from Amoonguna is an exhibition about two of Australia’s leading artists and their journey to get there.

IMAGES:

1/ Sally M Nangala Mulda at Tarnanthi, 2019

2/ Marlene Rubuntja holding a soft echidna sculpture

WATCH HERE

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Sally Anderson who is a finalist in this year's Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize with her work ‘Sea Town Lawn Roof Song with NO’s Vessel.’

The Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize is an annual prize that was launched in 2017 to advance art and opportunity for emerging and established female artists in Australia. It is the highest value professional artist prize for women in Australia.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

SALLY ANDERSON
Sea Town Lawn Roof Song with NO’s Vessel 2023
acrylic on canvas
115 x 97 cm

Sally M Nangala Mulda is a finalist in the 2023 Sulman Prize.

Old man pay day

Daughter and father drinking beer. Down the creek one woman got two tail. Two man coming with the beer two rum with the bag

Two rum and two coca cola in the bag

Woman taking tail

Man taking rum and coca cola with the bag

Man taking beer at the creek

Sally M Nangala Mulda, 2023

Sally M Nangala Mulda’s work is a form of documentary storytelling. She started painting in 2008 and has frequently portrayed town camp life since the 2007 Northern Territory intervention: people camping in the riverbed in swags, council rangers moving people on, people cooking kangaroo tail down the creek. Her practice represents an important catalogue of lived experience of town camp life and colonisation.

Read more here.

Sally M Nangala Mulda

Old man pay day

acrylic on linen

59.5 x 91.5 cm

Eliza Gosse is a finalist in the 2023 Archibald Prize.

This dual portrait features Eliza Gosse and her husband, architect and designer Benjamin Jay Shand, who was the subject of her portrait 'somewhere near home' in the Archibald Prize 2022.

Gosse describes this 2023 work – one of several recent portraits, all painted on board – as: 'a cut-out of our weekend at sunrise – just us and our fluffy robes.'

Robes are mandatory if you come to breakfast at ours. The coffee percolates as the muesli is garnished and the CD is chosen. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every morning could be spent lazing over several cups of coffee with a dash of honey and a side of strawberries?

While painting these portraits in my studio, I indulged in a few afternoons on the floor – tea and biscuits included – with the works propped up against the wall, as a sort of tea party with my wooden friends.

My studio mates will be glad to see these cut-outs gone; they say they came to life at night.

- Eliza Gosse

IMAGE:

Eliza Gosse

Breakfast At Ours

oil on board

two panels: 137.5 x 86.5 cm (left); 145.5 x 97 cm (right)

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Eliza Gosse was featured in The Design Files article 'Eliza Gosse's Paintings Capture the Nostalgia of Retro Architecture' by Christina Karras.

There’s a magical attention to detail within Eliza Gosse's architectural paintings.

She expertly captures the light-filled interiors and magical Modernist facades of homes inspired by designs of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s with a dreamy pastel palette that makes you want to leap right into them. All the while maintaining a beautiful ‘flatness’ about her work.

- Christina Karras, The Design Files

READ MORE HERE.

Congratulations to Vipoo Srivilasa who has been awarded the Visual Arts and Crafts Strategy (VACS) Major Commissioning Projects grant. Vipoo is a recipient of $100,000 to realise a major project 'Re/JOY' in collaboration with the Australian Design Centre. 'Re/JOY' is a collaborative, community-driven project designed to engage with overseas-born Australians.

'Re/JOY' will examine the emotional connection we form with objects by retelling migration stories and experiences. The project aims to provoke the complex feelings associated with overseas relocation and the difficult process of gaining Australian permanent residency.

READ MORE HERE

Image: Vipoo Srivilasa and the Happy Australian Sculptures at the National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Liv Cameron 2023.

Ari Athans was featured recently in the Qantas In-Flight magazine in an article written by Noelle Faulkner.

Heide Modern has unveiled 'Sense of Direction', a vivid and immersive collaboration between artist Brendan Huntley and fashion label Alpha60. The exhibition transforms the historic modernist home with an installation spanning paintings, sculptures, monotypes, rugs and clocks, all probing the fleeting nature of personal transformation.

A 32-metre carpet runner which was custom-designed to wind through both floors of Heide Modern anchors the show. Its bright motifs of faces, celestial forms and watchful eyes echo through a series of accompanying clocks and new sculptural works. The exhibition marks a significant moment in Huntley’s practice, which has long balanced raw emotional expression with playful symbolism. Known for works that navigate identity, intuition and inner shifts, his presentation at Heide Modern expands these concerns into an architectural scale, engaging directly with the building’s legacy of experimentation. Developed over a long creative partnership, the project expands a single rug concept into a full-scale intervention that heightens the building’s blend of domestic intimacy and museum context.

The exhibition is open at Heide Modern 11 March - 10 April 2023.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

Installation view of Brendan Huntley x Alpha 60 exhibition 'Sense of Direction' at Heide Modern, Melbourne, courtesy Christian Capurro.

Vipoo Srivilasa's work 'Happy Australian' will form part of the National Portrait Gallery's exhibition 'Portrait23: Identity'.

'Portrait23: Identity' is a major exhibition of new work from multi-award-winning contemporary Australian artists and collectives working across every state and territory. Street art, textiles, performance, photography, ceramics, painting, drawing, soft sculpture and bronze challenge the boundaries of portraiture. Many of the works move eloquently between installation, video, and animation, inviting you, the viewer, inside the portrait.

Twenty-three artists and collectives present dramatic, ambitious and thrilling work about who they are and what it means to represent themselves, their communities, their histories and contemporary society. They break open the genre with deeply personal evocations of themes that resonate collectively, such as cultural knowledge, feminism, visibility/invisibility, activism and journeys of migration.

10 March – 18 June 2023.

READ MORE HERE.

Image details;

Four works from Happy Australian, 2022 Vipoo Srivilasa. © Vipoo Srivilasa. Photograph by Simon Strong

Miranda Skoczek is featured in ‘Artists at Home’ a new book about Australian female artists by Karina Dias Pires, published by Thames and Hudson, out now.

IMAGE:

Miranda Skoczek, courtesy Karina Dias Pires

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Congratulations to Sally Anderson who is a finalist in this year's Muswellbrook Art Prize with her work ‘Lismore Island Roof Song with a Screenshot of Nat Silk’s Seatown’.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
Sally Anderson
Lismore Island Roof Song with a Screenshot of Nat Silk’s Seatown 2022
acrylic on polycotton

Ari Athan's work 'Strata Sample One' is featured in the current issue of Belle Magazine inside Anna Spiro's home.

IMAGE:

Ari Athans

Strata Sample One 2022

ceramic, wood and acrylic paint

57 x 20 x 20 cm

Noelle Faulkner from QANTAS Travel Insider Magazine spoke with Vipoo Srivilasa about his art practice. "With a playful approach that marries European-Australian and Thai motifs, this Bangkok-born artist’s figurines are full of charm."

READ MORE HERE.

Image details;

Pieces from Vipoo Srivilasa’s Always Better Together series (2022)

Ross Laurie is in an exhibition at New England Regional Art Museum titled 'Gorge Country'. His paintings 'Gorge I' and 'Gorge II' are on display alongside works by Angus Nivison and Stuart Boggs.

'Gorge Country' is open at New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale, New South Wales 5 November - 30 January 2022

IMAGE:

Ross Laurie

'Gorge II' 2021

oil on canvas

Sally Anderson has received a glowing review in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Sally Anderson’s Guido 'Holding Folding Moulding' is another stand-out. Ostensibly a portrait of her artist husband holding their child, there’s a metaphysical dimension to the work, with a sculpture on a pedestal, a jug with flowers and a red, flag-like curtain taking up significant space in the composition. The play of curves and fractured planes adds to the mystery of the picture, as we feel we are looking through multiple doorways or windows, projecting a dream-like atmosphere.

- John McDonald, Sydney Morning Herald, 2022.

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Congratulations to Sally Anderson who is a finalist in the Portia Geach Award at SH Ervin Gallery in Sydney.

The Portia Geach Memorial Award was established in 1965 to be annually presented to an Australian female artist. Portia Geach was an iconic figure in the Australian arts community, acclaimed for her art and media presence, and as such the award was created in her honour. The award is specifically for the best portrait painted from the life of someone well renowned in art, academia, or science.

The exhibition is open 16 September – 6 November 2022

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
SALLY ANDERSON
Guido holding, folding, moulding 2022
acrylic on polycotton
198 x 153 cm

Blue Island investigates the interplay of colour and memory in relation to individual experience. Paintings draw on hydrangea related respective experience to demonstrate the capacity for colour and object to hold and trigger memory and association. The exhibition seeks to question the reliability of memory and offers a way to authenticate experience through colour. In attempting to realise something perhaps visually impossible to verify within their paintings; mixing colour truthfully and straightforwardly from memory, the artists are challenged to settle on feeling and intuitive correctness rather than absolute truth and certainty.

Using a uniform size canvas, the 14 invited artists were instructed to translate, from their ‘mind’s eye’, the colour they most strongly associate with their experience of hydrangeas. The result is a collection of essentially monochrome surfaces steeped with hidden and concealed recollections of mothers and mother’s mothers, former neighbours and neighbourhoods, marriage, childbirth city front-yards, suburban backyards, households and broken family homes. More visually evident (than the personal histories imbued in the paintings) is the materiality and individually distinctive application of paint to surface. These largely monochrome works give a condensed, and detail like insight into each artist’s painterly signature, almost all of which are instantly recognisable.

- Sally Anderson, 2022

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Dan Kyle reflects on his time spent visiting Candy Nelson Nakamarra's studio with Edwina Corlette and Miranda Skoczek in preparation for 'On Common Ground' Exhibition. The show is current at Edwina Corlette Gallery 28 June – 16 July, 2022.

Candy’s style is completely unique within her community of artists in Papunya. You can see links with her fellow artists and definitely some direct influence from her father, the renowned Papunya Tula artist Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula, but she has created her own visual language. She’s doing something I haven’t seen before, and everyone in the group acknowledges it. “No one is painting like this!” we say, like five times each.

If you look closely at the work, through the layers of intricate motifs, you can see the initial process that Candy uses to start each painting. This is actually what excited me about her in the first place, as this part of her process really sets her apart. Candy starts each work by splashing and pouring watered-down paint over the canvases. She turns them around and around, forcing the drips to run freely. They crisscross and intersect each other over the surface. It’s the landscape from above: watercourses, waterholes, sand dunes.

Dan Kyle, June 2022

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

Candy Nelson Nakamarra at Papunya Tjupi Arts, 2022, photographed by Charlie Perry

Congratulations to Sally M Nangala Mulda who is a finalist in the 2022 Sulman Art Prize.

The Sulman Prize is awarded for the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project by an Australian artist.

Sally Mulda's painting 'Old Days at Amoonguna' depicts the art centre's toyota picking up all the woman for painting. That kungka Nadine driving. Long time ago I use to get picked up at Little Sisters. Now Abbott’s Camp. Every day. We listen to CAAMA radio. Good ways. Everybody talkin’ talkin’. This one [middle] – three woman, they on the hospital lawn, playing card for money. Pay day. Night time [right panel] four woman by the fire at town camp. They sitting round the fire at night time. Keeping warm, talking story. Maybe they by the fire because no power card? This is town camp life. Every day.

READ MORE HERE

Old Days at Amoonguna 2021
acrylic on linen
66 x 122.5 cm

The Archibald Prize is a prestigious Australian portraiture art prize that has been running since 1921. The national portrait prize is entering a new century with 816 submissions entered this year, of which 52 finalists were announced on Thursday 5th of May. It is with great pleasure to congratulate Eliza Gosse who was selected as a finalist in the 2022 Archibald Art Prize.

Gosse depicts in her painting an architect and designer Benjamin Jay Shand.

He sees beauty in the most peculiar places, has great hair and likes to wear sunglasses more than is usual. I can say that because he is my husband. I don’t often paint people; however, Benj finds himself the constant muse for my sketchbook scribbles. And as this is my first large-scale portrait, it felt natural for him to be the subject...

- Eliza Gosse

IMAGE:

Eliza Gosse

Somewhere Near Home (Painting of Benjamin Jay Shand) 2022

oil on canvas

122 x 152 cm

READ MORE HERE

Lottie Consalvo and James Drinkwater have created a big-hearted, art-filled home in their terrace house by the sea. James’ art practice incorporates painting, sculpture, drawings and wearable textiles. "Since I was a child, making art was the clearest way I could express myself,” he says. His creativity is nourished by “generosity of any kind, whether it be the human spirit or nature itself".

- Elizabeth Wilson, House & Garden Magazine

IMAGE:

James Drinkwater, courtesy Alana Landsberry

READ MORE HERE

RAFT artspace has unveiled a new body of work by Western Desert painter Carbiene McDonald Tjangala, highlighting a striking evolution in his practice. Committed to painting the four Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) stories inherited from his father, Snowy McDonald, the artist is known for his unwavering dedication.

Dallas Gold (director of RAFT Artspace) first noticed McDonald’s work through Papunya Tjupi Arts’s Instagram, a moment that led to the artist’s sell-out solo debut at RAFT in 2018. The 2022 exhibition builds on that success, revealing both continuity and experimentation. McDonald’s signature layered paint surfaces and square formations remain, yet the new works introduce subtle shifts in colour and structure that signal growing confidence and playfulness.

The exhibition is current at RAFT Artspace, Alice Springs, 29 April - 21 May, 2022.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

Installation image 'Carbiene McDonald Tjangala' at RAFT Artspace, Northern Territory

Art Guide has published a profile on artist Carbiene McDonald Tjangala from Papunya Tjupi Arts Centre.

'Papunya Tjupi Arts is an Aboriginal owned not-for-profit community art centre based in Papunya—located approximately 240 kilometres northwest of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). It’s also where McDonald first began painting. “All the young fellas were encouraging me to paint,” explains McDonald. “Now I’m painting, I’ve started working.”

With great movement in his practice, McDonald is committed to painting the four Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) stories inherited from his father Snowy McDonald. And this commitment is undeniable: “He’s the first one to arrive at the Papunya Tjupi and then last one to leave each day,” says Dallas Gold, director of RAFT artspace.

It was documentation of McDonald’s earlier work on Papunya Tjupi Arts’s Instagram that grasped the attention of many—including Gold—propelling McDonald’s first solo exhibition at RAFT artspace in 2018. It was a sell-out show. “There’s an inherited visual language in [McDonald’s] work but he’s also inventing a visual language,” explains Gold. “He’s inventing a language that alludes to something that he’s inherited without giving too much away.”

While McDonald’s new work at RAFT still has his signature iterative layers of paint and square formations, it also yields subtle yet meaningful shifts with colour and composition. Gold explains that McDonald is undoubtedly becoming more playful and dynamic within the structures of his work. The paintings demonstrate “strong statements informed by knowledge of Country and about Country—but they’re also inventing a language to allude to these knowledge systems, or they’re trying to reestablish this—so this is something that’s very new,” says Gold. As McDonald has explained, “I only paint my Country. I felt I had to paint this way, paint my homelands…in the future I’m going to keep making artworks of my Country.”'

- Autumn Royal for Art Guide, 2022

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

CARBIENE MCDONALD
Four Dreamings 2021
544-21
acrylic on canvas
122 x 181 cm

‘Expanded Canvas’ is a major exhibition at Town Hall Gallery exploring the dynamic and innovative nature of contemporary painting. The traditional grid and 2D picture plane are replaced by modern surfaces, including drop sheets, sign vinyl, virtual space, and the gallery wall itself.

Bundit’s mural painting will be exhibited in the major exhibition ‘Expanded Canvas’, showing at Hawthorn Arts Centre, Victoria - 23 April to Saturday 2 July 2022.

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Eliza Gosse whose work has been included in a new exhibition at New South Wales parliament house 'National Art School in the NSW Landscape'.

The exhibit explores the relationship between people, land and culture across the state through artworks by 21 significant Australian artists who studied at the National Art School (NAS), which this year celebrates 100 years since moving into the former Darlinghurst Gaol site in inner-city Sydney. Featuring 27 major artworks in various media including tapestry, collage and ceramics, this show represents the enormous diversity of NSW’s landscape, environment and culture.

The exhibition is open at NSW Parliament House from 9 – 31 March 2022.

READ MORE HERE

The disparate textural layers of Aggregates in Construct blend the myriad forms and patterns of nature marked by the boundaries of human action. Ari Athans’ stacked, sculptural arrangements flow between the handmade, organic and industrial, marking the liminal points where the landscape rests upon and collides with the built world.

- Art Almanac, 2022

IMAGE:

Ari Athans

Ultra Surface 2022

ceramic, wood, vesicular basalt, acrylic paint

36 x 22 x 20 cm

READ MORE HERE

For more than twenty years ceramic artist Vipoo Srivilasa has created intricate and elaborate artworks that reflect his bicultural experience living between Australia and Thailand. He celebrates the intersections and overlaps between cultural, social, philosophical and environmental contemplations on life in a pandemic. VAULT asked Srivilasa to share some of his most beloved artefacts.

There is more to Miranda Skoczek’s paintings than immediately meets the eye. They are built intuitively and in layers, from colours, patterns and objects that she absorbs in her immediate home environment – and all over the world. They are often abstract, sometimes with figurative elements; they focus on paint and colour, process and time, to create a space that takes us somewhere other, outside the material world. Inspiration comes from art and antiquities, folk art and contemporary design – and through obsessive consumption of images. Skoczek describes herself as “a sponge,” confessing to VAULT: “I have 95,000 photographs on my phone.”

The mystical is evident in Skoczek’s hope that her paintings work like amulets for those who acquire them. Protective elements aside, in their sensual textures and influences, so powerfully evoked, these paintings emerge as poignant and poetic visual essays written to the past and the present."\

- Louise Martin-Chew, Vault Magazine

IMAGE:

Front Cover of Vault Magazine, Issue 37, 2022, featuring Miranda Skoczek's Dreaming of Betty (Woodman), 2018

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Vipoo Srivilasa’s immersive, participatory installation Shrine of Life/ Benjapakee Shrine 2021, featuring five hand-crafted ceramic deities representing attributes important to the artist: identity, love equality, creativity, security and spirituality has been acquired by Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art. The work, finished with gold lustre and floral embellishments, reflects Srivilasa’s holistic approach to life, and encourages audiences to appreciate the things that unite us.

His artwork for APT10 expands his practice, building on its audience-oriented qualities. The artist has created a reflective, shrine-like space that houses five secular deities representing attributes important to him — love equality, spirituality, security, identity, and creativity — and asks visitors to join him in celebrating them. Through the work, Srivilasa venerates memories of his Thai homeland, acknowledges what his relocation to Australia has meant to him, and encourages viewers to appreciate both our differences and our commonalities.

QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY 'ASIA PACIFIC TRIENNIAL'

4 December 2021 - 25 April 2022

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Garland Magazine
WILL MY HEART REMEMBER?
By Aaron Bradbrook

Aaron Bradbrook presents, re/JOY, a project by Vipoo Srivilasa to reincarnate objects relinquished by residents of Warrnambool.

READ MORE HERE

The Art Gallery of Ballarat has acquired two Vipoo Srivilasa works for their permanent collection. The works are 'Aqium' and 'Lori the Healthcare Hero' from the COVID SUPERHERO EXHIBITION 2020.

What does a COVID-19 superhero look like? Ceramicist Vipoo Srivilasa has created a collection of superheroes inspired by the dreams of people in the Ballarat community. Each superhero has a special power to fight off COVID-19.

This project is a collaboration between the Art Gallery of Ballarat and the City of Ballarat’s Creative City team.

READ MORE HERE

NGV is committed to providing creative experiences for young people and their families and sharing new ways to be creative. The gallery invited Bundit Puangthong to conduct a series of online workshops for their NGV Kids programme, during the 2021 Melbourne lockdown.

With a background in puppeteering, Bundit created a range of workshops with an introduction to making paper puppets.

READ MORE HERE

This year Bundit Puangthong was a finalist with his work 'Riding Stars' 2021 in the Sunshine Coast Art Prize - a visual arts award reflecting outstanding contemporary 2D arts practice in Australia. 16 years into this annual award, it has become the pinnacle event for the Sunshine Coast’s Regional Gallery in Caloundra, attracting entries from emerging and established artists across the nation.

READ MORE HERE

Bundit Puangthong is a finalist in the 2021 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, with his work 'The Living Room' 2021. Occurring biennially, the 'Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize' attracts Australian artists and awards an acquisitive prize of $50,000. The Prize provides Bendigo Art Gallery with the opportunity to survey contemporary painting by established and emerging artists from across Australia.

READ MORE HERE

SDFSDF

Arts Hub
Exhibition Review: Vipoo Srivilasa: Wellness Deity, Linden New Art by Celina Lei
22 May 2021- 22 August 2021

Wellness Deity
The Wellness Deity Project, which Srivilasa undertook in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This collaborative, community-driven project encouraged people to reflect on their experience of the pandemic. The artist invited people to submit a drawing of their Wellness Deity, a being that has a special empowering or protective power. Srivilasa selected 19 of these drawings to provide inspiration for a series of ceramic sculptures. Each deity has its own unique characteristics based on the personal stories submitted. Each work is also accompanied by a piece of commissioned creative writing.

READ MORE HERE

Flash Forward is a Melbourne based project that aims to reinvigorate some lesser-known laneways with visual and acoustic designs from local creatives. The project has invited more than 80 artists to work on commissions of art installations, albums, and stage gigs across the city.

As part of the project Bundit was commissioned to make a large-scale work in Rose Lane.

READ MORE HERE

The 2021 Geelong contemporary art prize is a signature event that assists with the development of the Geelong Gallery’s collection while fostering Australian artists and contemporary painting practice in general.

Bundit Puangthong’s work ‘Skull splitter’ takes inspiration from a famous Buddhist story where a prince’s ship sinks, and he has to swim all the way back to shore. The story represents the challenges we all face, despite our social status, and the lessons we learn from them. ⁠

⁠
IMAGE:

Bundit Puangthong

Skull splitter 2020

synthetic polymer paint and spray paint

READ MORE HERE

Spanning over a career of 20 years, Thai-Australian artist Vipoo Srivilasa has harnessed art’s ability to connect creatives, organisations and the broader community.

Wellness Deity captured this collaborative energy in the light-filled room of Linden’s ground floor gallery. The 19 drawing submissions and accompanying writing surround the walls while Srivilasa’s ceramic iterations sit across two tables at the centre of the space. The hand-selected drawings from a total of 63 submissions from Australia and overseas showcase stories rooted in reflections, experiences, and hopes emerging out of the pandemic. Words Celina Lei

READ MORE HERE

This open competition is judged by the trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW. Finalists are displayed in an exhibition at the Gallery (although in the early years all entrants were hung). Although it is a non-acquisitive prize, several of the entries are now part of the Gallery’s collection.

Born in Titjikala in 1957, Mulda experienced a childhood accident that left her with impaired vision, but surgery has improved her sight. Exhibiting since 2008, she creates bright canvases with distinctive cursive text, depicting scenes of everyday life within Abbott’s Camp and drawing attention to social and political issues with emotional honesty.

In this portrait, the artist is wearing the stripey top and sits with her daughter, Louise Abbott. The other two people cooking roo tails on the fire represent all town camp women. As Mulda puts it: they are ‘maybe me and Louise, maybe any womans. This is town camp life. Every day.’

Mulda is also a finalist in this year’s Sulman Prize.

READ MORE HERE

Stefan Dunlop's work 'Splash II' has been donated to the Sunshine Coast Art Collection through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2021.

The Sunshine Coast Art Collection now numbers over 800 works, including winning works of the inaugural Sunshine Coast Art Prize in 2006 by one of the foremost Nyoongar artists, Shane Pickett (1957 – 2010).

"The prize’s main impetus is to build the Collection, but it’s also a great device for visibility of the vibrancy of the Sunshine Coast arts and culture."
- Collection Curator Nina Shadforth, 2021

IMAGES:

1/ Philanthropist Ferre De Deyne, Collection Curator Nina Shadforth and artist Stefan Dunlop

2/ Stefan Dunlop
Splash II 2017
oil on canvas
200 × 240.5 cm

VIPOO SRIVILASA

Wellness Deity 22 May 2021 > 22 August 2021

This exhibition will present the Wellness Deity Project, which Vipoo Srivilasa undertook in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This collaborative, community-driven project encouraged people to reflect on their experience of the pandemic. The artist invited people to submit a drawing of their Wellness Deity, a being that has a special empowering or protective power. Srivilasa selected 19 of these drawings to provide inspiration for a series of ceramic sculptures. Each deity has its own unique characteristics based on the personal stories submitted. Each work is also accompanied by a piece of commissioned creative writing.

READ MORE HERE

E-CATALOGUE

Established in 2015, the Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize is a celebration of contemporary Australian painting. The finalist exhibition brings together a broad range of artists, both established and lesser known, whose varied approaches to the painted medium conveys the breadth and diversity of painting in Australia today.

The annual prize is an important opportunity for Bayside City Council to add exceptional works of art to its collection and to promote art and artists as a valuable part of the Bayside community.

Sally Mulda's work 'Town Camp Stories' 2020 is a finalist in this year's prize.

READ MORE HERE

Written by Louise Martin-Chew

How Vipoo Srivilasa is repairing happiness

STUDIO

19 May 2021

Ceramicist Vipoo Srivilasa has a penchant for intricate and layered decoration that, he explains, is influenced by the ornate Buddhist temples he encountered growing up in Thailand. With an aesthetic he cheerfully describes as “more is more,” Srivilasa’s distinctive work also draws on European historical figurines and “a healthy dose of contemporary culture”. We chatted over cups of sencha tea in Srivilasa’s clean, bright warehouse studio in the suburb of Cheltenham, in Melbourne’s south-east.

Place
I’ve made this space really comfortable because I spend most of my time here, almost seven days a week. I come here about 7:30 in the morning and leave at 3:30 in the afternoon, go home, and do some shopping. Then I work on the computer, like writing or administration, in the evenings. Most of the time I’m just here; I live 10 minutes from here, so it’s really easy. Sometimes I go home for lunch—but I’ve found it kind of distracting, like you go home and it’s hard to come back again. So I bring my own lunch, or I’ll walk around the corner for a Vietnamese lunch.

READ MORE HERE

Sally Anderson has been included in an exhibition and article by The Australian which highlight new Australian art on the market.

It’s this moment of evolution that has inspired The Australian’s Summer Exhibition — a showcase of sculptures, paintings, photographs and works on paper. Beautiful to look at, it’s a celebration of some of the best and brightest artists working today. All 50 pieces have been selected because they signify what’s happening in Australian art and culture right now.

So, what is happening right now? The primary art market in Australia is experiencing a small boom. For obvious reasons, flying to international art fairs is off the cards, and this has led Australian collectors to rediscover a local market packed full of prodigious works by tomorrow’s household names.

It means there’s a renewed focus on Australian stories and more opportunities for emerging artists to have their work seen, as gallerists and buyers look toward home. It’s this time of risk-taking and yes, even optimism that our summer exhibition represents.

- Amy Campbell, The Australian, 2021

READ MORE HERE

Copywriter and content specialist Elle McClure was asked by the team at Medium Rare Content agency to help produce content for the autumn 2021 issue of the David Jones magazine, JONES HOME. As well as compiling trend pages and writing copy across the issue, Elle interviewed Otis Hope Carey, Louise Olsen and Miranda Skoczek as part of profiles on the artists.

READ MORE HERE

John Bokor is a finalist in the Dobell Drawing Prize with this work titled Lounge Room in Spring 2020, charcoal, wash and collage, 84 x 100 cm.

The Dobell Drawing Prize is the leading drawing exhibition in Australia and an unparalleled celebration of drawing innovation. Presented in partnership with the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation (SWDAF), the biennial prize explores the enduring importance of drawing within contemporary art practice.

William Dobell’s love of drawing was recognised in 1993 when the Art Gallery of New South Wales established an annual drawing prize in his name, initiated by the trustees of the SWDAF. For twenty years, the annual Dobell Prize for Drawing encouraged excellence in drawing and draughtsmanship among Australian artists.

IMAGE:
John Bokor
Lounge Room in Spring 2020
charcoal, wash, and collage
84 x 100 cm

READ MORE HERE

Stefan Dunlop's 2020 work 'Composition #1 with Bust' has recently been acquired by Artbank, Australia.

Artbank is part of the Australian Government Office for the Arts, in the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts. For 40 years Artbank has supported Australia’s contemporary art sector.

Established in 1980 by the Australian Government, Artbank’s two core objectives are to provide direct support to Australian contemporary artists through the acquisition of their work and to promote the value of Australian contemporary art to the broader public.

The Artbank collection was founded with an endowment of 600 artworks from the National Collection (now the National Gallery of Australia) and has since grown to include more than 10,000 works spanning media including painting, sculpture, video and photography. Through leasing works to individuals, companies and governments (at all levels), Artbank lives up to its policy principle of promoting broad access to Australian contemporary art. Through our leasing of artworks to Australian embassies and other overseas posts, we provide access to Australian contemporary art in approximately 70 countries across the globe.

IMAGE:

Stefan Dunlop

Composition #1 with Bust 2020

oil on linen

150 x 170cm

SHOWCASE

One in three American museums have not re-opened after lockdowns in March. But art continues to be bought, lent, and displayed by private banks. Dieter Buchhart, Art Critic

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In his podcast Alan Kohler tells the world that his three best non-share investments (that he actually owns) are:

1. A house in Richmond, Melbourne
2. A painting by Stefan Dunlop
3. A longines watch

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Vipoo Srivilasa has been awarded The 2021 Ceramic Artist of the Year by the editorial staff of Ceramics Monthly and Pottery Making Illustrated (USA).

The annual Ceramic Artist of the Year award is presented to an artist whose work reflects current aesthetics and sets an example for ceramic artists by embracing current trends, technology, studio, marketing, and/or community-focused practices.

“Over the course of your career, you’ve been very active with exhibitions, winning numerous awards, public art projects, teaching, mentoring, and community outreach. In addition, you have helped to support and advance the global clay community through innovative social media fundraising campaigns, among other projects.

You have also been very active in engaging with the field of ceramics and expanding creative connections with other creative fields and the wider community.

The fact that you can consistently create work as a self-employed artist in addition to having a busy international workshop, lecture, and exhibition schedule is impressive. In short due to all of your personal creative achievements, as well as your dedication to the field, we feel that you are more than deserving of the Ceramic Artist of the Year award.”

Jessica Knapp

Editor, Ceramics Monthly Magazine, Associate Editor, Pottery Making Illustrated, at The American Ceramic Society

In addition to the monetary award, The Artist of the Year feature will be in the 2021 Ceramic Arts Yearbook.

Desart TV speaks to Carbiene McDonald Tjangala. The film gives insight into Carbiene's life, and tracks the story of how he was introduced to painting at Papunya Tjupi. Carbiene welcomes the viewer into his studio, explaining his father's dreaming site as the inspiration for his 'Four Dreamings' paintings. The short documentary is a great introduction to Carbiene and his work.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

IMAGES:

Still images from video 'Carbiene McDonald Tjangala', posted by Desart TV 17 September 2020. Courtesy Shane Mulcahy, Desart TV, and Papunya Tjupi with support from the Northern Territory Government

Congratulations to Sally Anderson whose upcoming exhibition has been featured in Brisbane Art Guide.

To coincide with her exhibition at Tweed Regional Gallery, Edwina Corlette Gallery is delighted to present a series of new paintings by Sally Anderson. Sally is a past winner of the prestigious Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship and a finalist in this year’s Portia Geach Award for female portraiture, with her painting of Claudia Karvan (below).

Born in Lismore, Anderson began her undergraduate studies in Visual Art at Southern Cross University before transferring to the College of Fine Art in Sydney. A past finalist in the Sunshine Coast Art Prize and the Paddington Art Prize, Anderson was invited to participate in the Association of Icelandic Visual Artists Residency in Reykjavik in 2014. Her work has been acquired by Artbank, the Australian Catholic University and corporate and private clients in Australia and Europe.

- Brisbane Art Guide, 2020

READ MORE HERE

Eliza Gosse's work 'Spoonfuls of Milo at Kosciuszko' is a finalist in the 2020 Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The Wynne Prize is awarded annually for 'the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours or for the best example of figure sculpture by Australian artists'. This open competition is judged by the trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW.

IMAGE:

Eliza Gosse

Spoonfuls of Milo at Kosciuszko 2020

oil on canvas

150 x 120 cm

READ MORE HERE

Eliza Gosse's work 'A Triangle of Vegemite Toast Lay Forgotten Under the Mustard Chair' is a finalist in the 2020 Mosman Art Prize.

Established in 1947, the Mosman Art Prize is Australia's oldest and most prestigious local government art award. It was founded by the artist, architect and arts advocate, Alderman Allan Gamble, at a time when only a small handful of art prizes were in existence in Australia and the community had very little support and few opportunities to exhibit their work.

IMAGE:

Eliza Gosse

A Triangle of Vegemite Toast Lay Forgotten Under the Mustard Chair 2020

acrylic on canvas

The concept of home has changed in 2020. For a lot of people, home has never been just one static place, and yet in the last few months that stasis has been forced upon us. In the midst of shelter-in-place orders, we’ve been directed to decide on a single location that represents our place in the world and stay there, hoping it keeps us safe.

Reframing the domestic space as a new landscape intrigues artist and new mother Sally Anderson. Her new body of work is entitled Bridal Veil Falls, the Window and the Piano Lesson, and was created almost entirely in lockdown. The pieces will be on display at Edwina Corlette gallery in Brisbane from tomorrow, in an exhibition that explores the fusion between Sally’s subjective experience of parenthood, and the collective endurance of pandemic paralysis.

- Sasha Gattermayr, The Design Files, 2020

READ MORE HERE

To help my son sleep we put on white noise of a small river in Scotland and Llyn Gwynant waves in Wales. The toponomy of Lismore indicates it was named after Isle of Lismore which lies in Loch Linnhe, an arm of the sea, on the West Coast of Scotland. I was born in Lismore early 1990, an experience I hadn’t intimately considered until the birth of my son a couple of years ago. My son was conceived in the Nancy Fairfax Artist in Residence Studio at Tweed Regional Gallery. There’s a pair of hoop pines (aka Richmond River Pines) that dominate the side view from the residency verandah. I often use these trees, along with banksias, within my work to represent the Northern Rivers region, my transition to motherhood and European exploration/invasion of Australia.

The works in 'Arm of the Sea and the Fertile Tree' use landscape metaphor rather than subject. Intimate personal experience and collective experience are translated into paintings, bedspreads, windows, still lifes and stages.

- Sally Anderson, 2020

The exhibition is open from 3 July — 29 November 2020

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
Installation image of Sally Anderson's exhibition at Tweed Regional Gallery

Sally Anderson's work 'Claude Swimming' has been selected as a finalist in the Portia Geach Prize for 2020. The painting of Claudia Karvan, actress, producer and writer will be exhibited at the National Trust's S.H. Ervin Gallery.

The Portia Geach Memorial Award was established in 1965 to be annually presented to an Australian female artist. Portia Geach was an iconic figure in the Australian arts community, acclaimed for her art and media presence, and as such the award was created in her honour. The award is specifically for the best portrait painted from the life of someone well renowned in art, academia, or science.

The exhibition will be open in Sydney from 14 August – 20 September 2020.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
Sally Anderson
Claude Swimming, 2020
acrylic on linen
168 x 137cm

Congratulations to Stefan Dunlop who is a finalist in the 2020 Sunshine Coast National Art Prize with his 2018 work 'Pink, Green, Blue'.

The acquisitive Sunshine Coast National Art Prize is a dynamic visual arts award reflecting outstanding contemporary 2D and new media arts practice in Australia.

IMAGE

Stefan Dunlop

Pink, Green, Blue 2018

oil on linen

164 x 122cm

Vipoo Srivilasa’s interactive 'Love Lab' performance offers participants the chance to reflect on the ingredients that make up their love language and in turn, to finally find out how good or bad love tastes.

Love Lab will be performed on the opening night of Objects of Love Exhibition, 12 March - 13 May 2020. The show presents artworks which symbolise and reflect love of all kinds across cultures. Working from different cultural perspectives, the artists each explore themes of contemporary and traditional exchanges of love, connection to loved ones, and the strength and fragility of bonds of love.

Artists include Vipoo Srivilasa, Cyrus Tang, Kate Just, Zaiba Khan and Varuni Kanagasundaram.

https://www.craft.org.au/craft-whats-on-events/lovelabperformance

Image: Love Lab performance 2019

Rhys Lee has been featured in an article by Juxtapoz on his experience as a practicing artist in Australia during the covid pandemic.

Continuing our mission to check with friends and favorite artists around the globe, we virtually traveled all the way to Victoria, Australia, to check on what's happening with Rhys Lee. Based in a small coastal town located southwest of Melbourne, the artist is a whirl of activity as he intensively works on new paintings.

- Juxtapoz

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Eliza Gosse who is a finalist in the 2020 with her work 'He Watched Cars Passing By Beyond The Cracks In The Curtains', 2020, oil on canvas, 120x150cm.

The Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize is an annual prize that was launched in 2017 to advance art and opportunity for emerging and established female artists in Australia. It is the highest value professional artist prize for women in Australia.

Artwork judging is overseen by Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize Patron and acclaimed artist, Jennifer Turpin and the winners will be announced 26 May 2020.

IMAGE:

Eliza Gosse in her studio, courtesy the artist

READ MORE HERE

To coincide with her exhibition 'Mini Mokes and Mini Skirts', Eliza Gosse is featured in the April edition of Harpers Bazaar magazine

The Korea-Australia Arts Foundation Prize is run annually in cooperation with the Korean Cultural Centre.

Srivilasa's work 'The Course of True Love' is about the same-sex marriage journey. The series is realised in five bronze vignettes representing moments in world history that have contributed directly or indirectly to the acceptance of same-sex partnerships, and led Australia to pass the same sex marriage law in 2018. The moments including the Stoneware riots, Thailand decriminalising homosexuality, the establishment of Society Five, the first homosexual rights organisation in Melbourne, the Simpsons dedicating an entire episode to the same-sex marriage topic and the Yes campaign.

“I work predominantly with ceramics but for this series I chose to work with bronze. I use bronze, a robust and permanent medium to symbolise the strong concept of marriage and a solid commitment a couple makes to each other. Bronze is also a medium for religion statues. It would represent the sacred concept of marriage in my work.” …Vipoo Srivilasa

The Course of True Love will be part of Objects of Loves exhibition at Craft Victoria, Melbourne. 12 March - 13 May 2020

Image: The Course of True Love 2019

Roopanakar Museum of Fine Arts, Bhopal, India

13 February - 30 March 2020

Inaugurated by the then Prime Minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi on 13th February 1982, Bharat Bhavan is a multi art centre, set up to create an interactive proximity between the verbal, visual and performing arts. Bharat Bhavan provides space for contemporary expression, thought, quest and innovation. Bharat Bhavan seeks to provide a creative and thought provoking milieu to those who wish to contribute something new and meaningful, in contemporary scene in the fine arts, literature, theatre, cinema, dance and music.

Bharat Bhavan International Ceramic Exhibition is a feature part of the 38th anniversary celebrations. It is the first time an international exhibition of ceramic art has been organized in the state. Eminent ceramic artists from India, US, Australia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Ireland, Italy, China and France are attending the exhibition.

Vipoo Srivilasa is representing Australia.

Image: vipoo at the opening

'Artefacts', Alison Kubler, Vault Magazine, Issue 23, 104-105pp.

Bridie Gillman has been been selected as one of six finalists in the prestigious Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, administered by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The annual Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship is now in its 21st year and is open to Australian painters aged between 20 and 30 years. It was created from an endowment by Mrs Beryl Whiteley in 1999. The inspiration was the profound effect international travel and study had on her son, the artist Brett Whiteley, as a result of winning the Italian Government Travelling Art Scholarship in 1959 at the age of 20.

Carbiene McDonald Tjangala has been named among the finalists for the 2019 Vincent Lingiari Art Award. Presented jointly by Desart and the Central Land Council (CLC), the award opened on 4 September at Tangentyere Artists Gallery.

This year’s theme, “True Story – My Country,” echoes the Uluru Statement from the Heart and its call for national truth-telling. This year’s award builds on the legacy of the inaugural 2016 Vincent Lingiari Art Award, ‘Our Land Our Life Our Future’, which marked two major milestones: the 50th anniversary of the Wave Hill Walk Off led by Vincent Lingiari and the 40th anniversary of the Land Rights (NT) Act.

Carbiene’s work joins 22 other entries exploring personal and political stories of Country, resilience and history. There is a range of mediums represented in the exhibition - from sculpture and ceramics to video and painting, reflecting themes of reconciliation. The entries are judged by Nhanda and Nyoongar curator Glenn Isegar Pilkington.

The exhibition is current at Tangentyere Artists Gallery until 18 October, 2019.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

Carbiene McDonald Tjangala work 'Four Dreamings', a finalist in the Vincent Lingiari Art Award 2019

My paintings talk of relationship, context and metaphor. They are loaded with autobiographical content, draw on past and present experiences and often arrive in pairs. Recent paintings use abstraction, still life and borrowed landscapes to reference everyday intimate experience held in object and place. They explore the self and use abstraction, landscape and still life as devices to do so.

- Sally Anderson, The Design Files, 2019.

READ MORE HERE

Sally Anderson's work 'Side of the Road River with Rousseau's Bluebells' has been selected as a finalist in the Mosman Art Prize

Mosman Art Prize was established in 1947, and is Australia's oldest and most prestigious local government art award. The winning artworks join a collection of modern and contemporary Australian art, reflecting developments in Australian art practice since 1947. Artists who have won the Mosman Art Prize include Margaret Olley, Guy Warren, Grace Cossington Smith, Weaver Hawkins, Nancy Borlase, Lloyd Rees, Elisabeth Cummings, Adam Cullen, Michael Zavros and Natasha Walsh.

The exhibition is open until 27 October 2019 at Mosman Art Gallery.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
SALLY ANDERSON
Side of the Road River with Rousseau's Bluebells 2019
acrylic on linen

Congratulations to Carbiene McDonald Tjangala, who has won the 2019 Hadley’s Art Prize, Australia’s richest landscape art award. Carbiene began painting only a year ago, yet his winning artwork, Four Dreamings, was chosen from more than 600 entries. The piece represents four Tjukurrpa (Dreamtime) stories passed down from his father and reflects his deep connection to Country.

The artist travelled for two days from the remote community of Papunya to Hobart—taking his first-ever flight—to accept the prestigious landscape art prize. His sister Karen, who translated for him, said he felt “really happy and grateful,” moved by the national recognition.

A member of a well-known Central Australian artistic family, McDonald Tjangala quickly became known for his dedication. Papunya art studio facilitator said the artist often paints from opening until closing time: “He’s often there before it opens and paints until we have to kick him out.”

Hadley’s Art Prize judge and MONA curator Jane Clark described Four Dreamings as “exciting and original” with a “universal quality.”

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:

Carbiene McDonald Tjangala with his painting 'Four Dreamings' which won the Hadley's Art Prize, courtesy Jessica King.

John Bokor's work 'Spring' has been selected as a finalist in the National Still Life Award at Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery.

Still is a biennial, acquisitive award for artworks in the genre of still life, in all mediums. The award is open to artists at all stages of their careers. Still: National Still Life Award seeks to highlight the diversity and vitality of still life in Australian contemporary art practice, broadening the interpretation and meaning of this enduring genre. The judge is Rebecca Coates, Director of the Shepparton Art Museum.

The Still exhibition official opening is on Saturday 21st September and is open until Saturday 16th November 2019.

IMAGE:
John Bokor
Spring 2019
oil on board
120 x 120 cm

READ MORE HERE

Un/Thaid, curated by Vipoo Srivilasa and featuring Bundit Puangthong has been reviewed in the Sydney Morning Herald:

A new exhibition showcases the work of five Thai-born artists now living and working in Australia, the first of its kind in Melbourne. Curated by Vipoo Srivilasa, the show was designed to provide a platform, "for [the artists] to have a voice in Australia". An artist who moved to Australia 22 years ago, Srivilasa says when you emigrate, your cultural identity changes.

"All of them have a very strong sense of Thai culture in their work, yet it’s not traditional. It blends with Australian culture and becomes something new, something exciting."

- Kerrie O'Brien, Sydney Morning Herald

Un/Thaid runs until July 27 at Grau Projekt.

READ MORE HERE

UN/THAID Curated by Vipoo Srivilasa

This exhibition brings together the work of five contemporary artists from Thailand who now live and work in Australia. Arriving in Australia independently of one another across the 1990s and 2000s, these five artists are based in the urban centres of Melbourne and Sydney and have continued their distinct individual practices since arriving in this country. The work on display in this exhibition is a diverse offering, including performance, painting, ceramics, sculpture, video and installation. Articulating multi-dimensional and layered histories, all of these artists are emboldened in their shared cultural experience of growing up in Thailand and then relocating to Australia while continuing to develop and refine their artistic practices. This exhibition features the work of Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Nakarin Aaron Jaikla, Bundit Puangthong, Pimpisa Tinpalit and Somchai Charoen. A Thai born Melbourne based artist, Vipoo Srivilasa has initiated and organised this exhibition because of his desire to provide visibility and voice for Thai Contemporary artists who have been working and living in Australia.

The exhibition is open 13 June – 27 July, 2019

Grau Projekt, Melbourne

READ MORE HERE

Sarah Cox previews Stefan Dunlop's painting practice in the latest issue of Artist Profile magazine.

Dunlop contextualises his work in today’s world of ‘fake news’ and post-internet art by addressing the Western art tradition with irony. He adheres to a critical approach based on an aesthetic discourse that employs abstract art as a response to digital technology. His response to the chaos confronting us today is to go back to the old-school order of paint on canvas, using collage and fragmentation to evoke the digital milieu’s oversaturation of images.

Dunlop’s oeuvre has evolved from creating observational-based work and still lifes to figures in landscape. Early on, his work comprised monumental heroic figures painted in warm colours and bold gestural strokes. His recent work, in contrast, uses less structured, looser forms.

- Sarah Cox, Artist Profile, 2019

READ MORE HERE

The Muswellbrook Art Prize began in 1958 as the Festival of the Valley Art Prize and has grown to acquire an excellent collection of Australian artworks. These include modern and contemporary painting, works on paper, and ceramics from the Post War period and now the first two decades of the 21st Century. The Muswellbrook Shire Art Collection was created as a direct result of this ongoing acquisitive art competition.

John Bokor is a finalist in the 2019 prize.

IMAGE:
John Bokor
The Red Velvet Lounge 2018
oil on linen
68 x 91cm

READ MORE HERE

Brisbane Art Design festival is a 17-day festival of exhibitions, performances, talks, art tours, workshops and open studios of artists and designers in Brisbane. BAD showcases more than 150 Brisbane artists across all career stages.

Bridie Gillman collaborated with Brisbane designer Alexander Loterztain to make the work Breath as part of the festival held at Museum of Brisbane.

IMAGE:

Jono Searle courtesy Museum of Brisbane.

The Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize is an annual prize that was launched in 2017 to advance art and opportunity for emerging and established female artists in Australia. There are two prize categories, including a $35,000 prize — the richest professional art prize for women in Australia. Artwork judging will be overseen by Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize Patron and acclaimed artist, Jennifer Turpin, and announced at the exhibition opening on 31 May, 2019.

Eliza Gosse is a finalist with her work 'Your Yellow Brick Holding Up the Sky' 2019, oil on canvas 50 x 40cm

READ MORE HERE

The Moreton Bay Regional Art Award is an annual acquisitive exhibition proudly sponsored by the Moreton Bay Council. This year the Art Award offered an acquisitive prize of $8000, four category prizes of $2000 each, and two supplementary $1000 prizes for a Local Artist and a People's Choice Award.

Judged by Megan Williams, Manager of the University of the Sunshine Coast Art Gallery, Bridie Gillman was awarded the overall winner with her work 'Some sort of growth' 2018.

Megan Williams commented: 'The artist's sense of the materiality of paint, the play of colour, darkness and light make it a very strong and visually arresting painting. The colours reference the natural environment and you get a sense of the artists awe and love of nature, however, its abstract quality resists clear and direct communication. It is a work to become immersed in, to sit with, and to contemplate.'

READ MORE HERE

Sally Nangala Mulda has been selected as a finalist in the 2019 Sulman Prize, administered by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The Sulman Prize is awarded for the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project by an Australian artist.

Sally says of her working this years prize:

This is me outside my home at Abbott’s Town Camp in Alice Springs feeding my cats. Little cat, mother cat. One woman, my family, playing cards. Nobody bothering anybody. No papa bothering the cats! We are just sitting quietly. I like quiet. Nobody talking.

Sally M Nagala Mulda, 2019

Image: Sally feeding little cat, mother cat, acrylic on linen, 76 x 92 cm

John Bokor is a finalist in the 2019 Sulman Prize, administered by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The Sulman Prize is awarded in the terms of the gift of the family of the late Sir John Sulman, to the best genre painting and/or mural project done by an artist resident in Australia during the five years preceding the date fixed by the Trustees for sending in entries.

'Four thirty pm' s from a group of works I started making in 2017 depicting interior spaces. They are hybrid paintings of real and imagined scenes made using an airbrush and traditional painting tools. This painting took a very long time to resolve. I thought at one point in 2018 that it was finished and had it framed, only to realise early this year that it needed more work. I treated it as badly as it had me and sanded the surface down and reworked the whole painting, destroying most of what was underneath. When it was finally finished the light in the studio resembled the light in the painting. I checked my clock and it was 4.30pm.

- John Bokor, 2019

IMAGE:
John Bokor
Four thirty pm 2019
oil on board
125 x 147 cm

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Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award 2019

When: 29 May–12 July 2019
Tuesday to Friday 10am–4pm, Open only during exhibitions
Where: Deakin University Art Gallery, Melbourne Burwood Campus
Building FA, 221 Burwood Hwy, Burwood, VIC 3125

In its tenth anniversary year this annual acquisitive award and exhibition is organised by the Art Collection and Galleries Unit displaying the work of the 2019 finalists.

Image: VIPOO SRIVILASA Protection 2018, 66
 x 37
 x 23 cm, ceramic, acrylic paint, glaze ceramic flowers and mix media.

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Louise Martin-Chew writes about Sally Nangala Mulda's life and painting for Art/Edit magazine. She says:

'WHAT IS MOST DISTINCTIVE about the paintings of Sally M. Nangala Mulda is that they tell us just how it is to live in Abbott’s Town Camp, not far from the mostly dry Todd River bed in Alice Springs (Mparntwe). Many of the paintings produced by Indigenous artists working out of the region use colour and pattern to evoke the romance of their connections to Country. However, Sally’s approach delivers the gritty reality of the place in which she lives, the interactions between police and Aboriginal people, the supermarket as the source of “a feed”, the tension around alcohol consumption and people sleeping rough, all set amongst saltbush, waterholes, homes and shops.'

READ MORE HERE

On Sally Nangala Mulda's work for 'The National' at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Snack Syndicate for Running Dog writes:

'Sally Mulda’s narrative style mimics the pedantic, forensic language of the state while at the same time showing that such language tends to obfuscate its subjects—people who live and die. Mulda’s frank descriptions of the Town Camp index the countless different ways that black life is both constrained by, and always in excess of, white law.

Together, the paintings in the exhibition are quietly unsettling, staging a series of encounters that produce both minor affects (annoyance, confusion, amusement, affection) and their major implications. Engaging with the paintings, we feel the enormity of living under occupation, as well as the conviction that such enormity can never be total.'

READ MORE HERE

https://www.the-national.com.a...

Curator Isobel Parker Philip talks about Sally Mulda's work for 'The National' at the Art Gallery of New South Wales:

'Sally Nangala Mulda is an artist who lives in Abbott's Town Camp in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

She paints scenes from her daily life. She paints people having breakfast. She paints going to the football. She paints people going to sleep. She also paints the routine and intrusive presence of the police amongst the indigenous communities in the Northern Territory.

All of these scenes are painted with the same frank and stark honesty. There is a normalisation of the police presence amongst the Indigenous community that is shocking to see at first and is amplified by the regularity with which Sally paints it and that we see it again and again across the installation.

This reminds us about what life looks like for a huge portion of our Indigenous people. In this work we see the lived effects of the 2007 Northern Territory intervention. It's a brutal reminder about what reality can really look like.

Sally paints her figurative scenes and then applies text on top of them to tether each work to a particular time and place. These are diaristic documents. They're paintings that do the job of photographs or snapshots. There's a kind of direct relationship between these scenes and the real world. We read them as snapshots. We read them as kind of episodes from life as it is lived.'

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We are delighted to see works by Sally Anderson, Belem Lett, Lucy O'Doherty, and Amber Wallis in the new exhibition 'The Whiteley at 20: Twenty Years of the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship', as previous finalists of the award.

Established by Ms Beryl Whiteley in 1999 in memory of her son, the 'Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship' provides young painters with the opportunity to travel through Europe to develop their artistic practice. Since its inception, 20 young painters have followed in the titular artist's footsteps.

The exhibition features works by Sally Anderson, Alice Byrne, Mitch Cairns, James Drinkwater, Petrea Fellow, Becky Gibson, Nathan Hawkes, Alan Jones, Nicole Kelly, Belem Lett, Lucy O’Doherty, Wayde Owen, Timothy Phillips, Tom Polo, Ben Quilty, Karlee Rawkins, Samuel Wade, Amber Wallis, Natasha Walsh, and Marcus Wills, alongside the four paintings that won Brett Whiteley the Italian Government Travelling Scholarship.

The exhibition presents not only the works that won the scholarship, but features works from each artist's residency at the Cite Internationale des Art, Paris and recent work.

The exhibition is open from 22 March - 5 May 2019 at the S.H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGES:
1/ Previous winners of the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship attending the opening of 'The Whiteley at 20: Twenty Years of the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship'
2/ Brett Whiteley

In celebration of Gorman’s decade-long collaboration with visual artists, Heide is presenting a two-week pop-up exhibition in the iconic modernist building, Heide II.

The exhibition will feature garments from a new range by Gorman created in collaboration with ten artists who have worked with the Australian clothing label since 2009, including Miranda Skoczek. The garments will be displayed alongside the artworks which inspired them.

READ MORE HERE

Ari Athans is interviewed in the latest issue of Vault Magazine about the breadth of her creative practice - between sculpture, painting, and jewellery.

READ MORE HERE & PDF

Bridie Gillman's work as featured in Woven Kolektif's looking here, looking north exhibition at Casula Powerhouse has been reviewed in Art Asia Pacific Magazine.

At the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in Sydney, a video portrays the interior of a restaurant, its walls decorated with Australian-flag bunting, and kitsch Australiana tea towels and posters, positioning us inside an ostensibly Australian establishment. It is revealed in subsequent shots of the staff, clientele, and the beach outside, however, that this is in fact a tourist spot in Bali. Bridie Gillman’s video work Bali State of Mind (2017–18) ruminates on the unequal power dynamic between Australia and Indonesia, the latter being economically reliant on tourism and subject to the objectifying tourist gaze that comes with over one million Australians visiting annually.

Gillman is one of seven artists included in the exhibition 'looking here looking north' by members of Woven, a collective with “continuing personal connections to Indonesia.” While Gillman’s work is subtly political, the exhibition holistically was striking in its ability to reach beyond essentialist identity politics, reconfiguring what it means to be part of the Indonesian diaspora by speaking to universal themes of memory, place and belonging.

- Soo-Min Shim, Art Asia Pacific Magazine

looking here looking north is on view at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney, 12 January - March 17, 2019

IMAGE:

Bridie Gillman

Bali state of mind (still) 2017–18

two-channel video installation

17 min 40 sec

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Toby Orton from Plain Magazine features Eliza Gosse's work. He writes:

Delving into social issues of national identity and immigration, artist Eliza Gosse focuses on the post-war houses built for European migrants in her home country of Australia in the 50s, 60s and 70s. In her striking oil paintings, Gosse’s style combines clean, color blocked geometric forms that call to mind the utopian ideals of suburban planning with a ‘nostalgic
inflection’. The ‘Suburban Modernism’ that she has created is a response to her interests in design history, the initial impact of inexpensive post-war architecture on communities and the way that the design’s influence and meaning is viewed over time. In her paintings of the Australian (and to a lesser extent, American) suburbs she celebrates an era of design that mocks the unflattering stereotype of bland suburbia and celebrates the unabashed invention of the time.

READ MORE HERE

looking here looking north is an exhibition by Woven, a collective of artists who each have continuing personal connections to Indonesia. Themes of identity, memory and cross-cultural experience are explored through performance, painting, installation, photography, video and sculpture.

Featuring work by: Kartika Suharto-Martin, Ida Lawrence, Mashara Wachjudy, Bridie Gillman, Sofiyah Ruqayah, Alfira O’Sullivan and Leyla Stevens.

looking here looking north is presented alongside an exhibition by artist Frances Larder and an exhibition of video works by Jumaadi as part of a suite of exhibitions showcasing perspectives on Indonesia.

The exhibition is on view at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney, 12 January - March 17, 2019

READ MORE HERE

The Ideal Home presents a history of the 20th century Australian home told through household objects, furniture and design classics from the MAAS Collection.

For much of the 20th century Australia enjoyed one of the highest rates of home ownership in the world. This situation emerged following the landmark ‘Harvester Judgement’ of 1907, which enshrined a ‘living wage’, and enabled ordinary workers to purchase a home and support a family.

Post war affluence, technology, mass manufacturing and the ready availability of goods, created both a consumer base and desire. In this setting, suburbs grew and homes became our castles. Australians enthusiastically adopted international trends in architecture, interior furnishings and design. Labour saving devices liberated us from domestic drudgery and increased the time available for leisure. Indoors and outdoors Australians aspired to a lifestyle centred upon the comfort, style, amenity and function of the home.

The Ideal Home presents a history of the 20th century Australian home told through household objects, furniture and design classics from the MAAS Collection. See more of The Ideal Home including modernist design and artworks at MAAS Powerhouse, Ultimo.

The Ideal Home is a partnership between the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences and Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest.

The exhibition suite features works across the site from the following Australian artists:

• Cope Street Collective: Mathew Cooper and Colin Kinchela
• Karla Dickens
• Victoria Garcia
• Richard Goodwin
• Blake Griffiths
• eX de Medici
• Catherine O’Donnell
• Eliza Gosse

READ MORE HERE

Obsession: Devil in the detail examines our fascination with the meticulous and micro, the real and the hyperreal and brings together a range of historical and contemporary works under three broad themes of still life, portraiture and landscape. Featuring artworks that seduce us with the power of their realism and intricate detail, the devil in the detail becomes the ideas and concepts that exist beneath the surface.

Featuring work by local and international artists including Natasha Bieniek, Chris Bond, Erin Coates, Audrey Flack, Juan Ford, James Gleeson, Sam Jinks, Jess Johnson, Anna Kristensen, eX de Medici, Tully Moore, Callum Morton, Jan Nelson, Sandra Selig, Vipoo Srivilasa, Ricky Swallow, teamLab, Eugene von Guerard and more.

30 November 2018 - 17 February 2019

READ MORE HERE

Vipoo Srivilasa has been commissioned to design seven large sculptures for ICONSIAM, a mixed-use development on the banks of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok Thailand, opening on 9 November 2018.

ICONSIAM is the ultimate shopping destination. The all-in-one complex, located on 750,000 square metres of the land on the banks of Chao Phraya River is a wonder to behold for those passionate about retail and development. It is divided into three main sections: the main ICONSIAM, the glamorous riverside ICONLUXE, and street facing side Siam Takashimaya.

READ MORE HERE

Sally Anderson's work ‘Guy’s Painting of Wollumbin on my Wollumbin’ has been acquired by Tweed Regional Gallery. In 2017 Sally was an artist in residence at the Nancy Fairfax Artist Residency through the Tweed Regional Gallery and throughout her life, has had strong connections to the region.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
SALLY ANDERSON
Guy's Painting of Wollumbin on my Wollumbin 2018
acrylic on linen
140 x 122 cm

Congratulations to John Bokor who has been awarded a highly commended in the 2018 EMSLA prize.

Now in its twelfth year, the Eutick Memorial Still Life Award comes to Wollongong to coincide with the city’s signature festival, Viva La Gong. Judged annually by critic and art historian John McDonald, the EMSLA has added prestige to the festival and increased still life’s importance as a genre in art.

9 November - 1 December 2018

IMAGE:
John Bokor
Aperol and Oranges 2018
oil on canvas
61x76cm

READ MORE HERE

The William Fletcher Trust (now the William Fletcher Foundation) was established in 1985 to celebrate the life and to commemorate the work of William Fletcher whose straitened circumstances, ill health and early death cut short his developing talents. In 1988, the Trust awarded its first grants for study to tertiary students of the visual arts. The William Fletcher Trust was incorporated in 2006 as William Fletcher Foundation following a generous bequest. Since 1988, grants totalling over $400,000 have been distributed to over 500 highly talented students of the visual arts, to assist them to continue their studies.

In 2018 the grant was awarded to Eliza Gosse.

READ MORE HERE

Stefan Dunlop's work was featured on the highly regarded Design Files blog.

'The 45-year-old came to his practice ‘in a round about way’. He tried out a range of jobs and a degrees not associated with art, before landing in New York for six months, where he enrolled in the New York Studio School. ‘This is what really kick started my painting career,’ he recalls. ‘Now I work in splendid isolation on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.’

- Elle Murrell, Design Files, 2018

IMAGE:

Stefan Dunlop in his studio, courtesy the artist

READ MORE HERE

John Bokor is a finalist in the Kedumba Drawing Award at Orange Regional Gallery. Now in its 29th year, the Award plays a vital role in fostering the production and appreciation of drawing in Australia. Initiated by Jeffrey and Marlene Plummer in 1989, the Kedumba Drawing Award has grown steadily. Each year, the Judge is an established artist whose only guideline is “to enrich and enhance the Collection”

The Kedumba Collection of Australian Drawings, with over 230 works, is currently on long term loan to Orange Regional Gallery. It is an Orange Regional Gallery and Kedumba Trust partnership exhibition.

The award is open 20 October - 2 December, 2018.

IMAGE:
John Bokor
Weekend Away 2018
charcoal, wash and collage
56x76cm

READ MORE HERE

John Bokor's artwork, 'Collection Day' 2011 is now on permanent display at the State Library of New South Wales. The new gallery space opens 6th October 2018.

'Collection Day' shows Organs Road, Bulli, looking east, the morning after garbage collection day. The bins, with lids flung open, capture the everyday aspect of suburban recycling practice. This loose and lively suburban street scene celebrates the commonplace.

IMAGES:

1/
John Bokor
Collection Day 2011
oil on board
90 x 120cm

2/
Installation view of State Library of New South Wales with John Bokor and his painting Collection Day, 2011

READ MORE HERE

Miranda Skoczek, Julian Meagher and John Aslanidis are finalists in The Kings School Art Prize 2018.

The King’s Art Prize is a $20,000 acquisitive award presented to the best contemporary artwork created by an artist resident in Australia and represented by a commercial gallery, supporting both the artists and the fine arts industry. Entry is by invitation only and the finalists are selected by an appointed Art Prize panel.

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John Aslanidis, Belem Lett and Bridie Gillman are finalists in the 2018 Fisher's Ghost Award through Campbelltown Arts Centre.

The Fisher’s Ghost Art Award is part of Campbelltown’s annual Festival of Fisher’s Ghost. Held over 10 days, the Festival dates back to 1956 and celebrates Australia’s most famous ghost – Frederick Fisher.

The Open section of the Art Award is acquisitive to the Campbelltown Art Centre permanent collection and the artist is awarded prize-money of $20,000. Over the years, the prize has been won by some of Australia's most well respected contemporary artists.

READ MORE HERE

John Bokor is a finalist in the 2018 Tattersall's Art Prize with his work A Walk in the Park 2018, oil on canvas, 108x122cm.

A total of 93 artists across Australia accepted the invitation to participate in the 2018 Tattersall's Club and Mercedes-Benz Toowong Landscape Art Prize Award. The prize is acquistive and the winning painting is added to the Club's art collection. The judging panel for 2018 includes Dr David Middlebrook, former Tattersall's Art Prize winner and senior painting lecturer, Mrs Bettina MacAuley, Gallery and Museum Consultant Antiques and Fine Art Valuer, Ms Angela Goddard, Director of Griffith University Art Gallery and Mr Stuart Waddington, Committee Member of Tattersall's Club.

- Stuart Fraser, Tattersall's Club 2018

IMAGE:
John Bokor
A Walk in the Park 2018
oil on canvas
108 x 122 cm

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Sally Anderson who is a finalist in the Paddington Art Prize 2018.

The Paddington Art Prize is a $30,000 National acquisitive prize, awarded annually. The prize is specific to paintings inspired by the Australian landscape, as the imagery is integral to the tradition of Australia painting and is an enduring motif within contemporary art, shaping national identity.

This work uses ‘borrowed landscapes’ to look at ways we experience the Australian landscape from the comfort of our homes. It uses landscape as a device to demonstrate a shift in the way we experience landscape.

- Sally Anderson


IMAGE:

Sally Anderson
Sharing Thirroul (Paul Ryan's Post Of Thirroul With Curtain) 2017
acrylic on linen
140 x 124 cm

READ MORE HERE

The Paddington Art Prize is a $30,000 National acquisitive prize, awarded annually. The prize is specific to paintings inspired by the Australian landscape, as the imagery is integral to the tradition of Australia painting and is an enduring motif within contemporary art, shaping national identity.

Bundit Puangthong is a 2018 Finalist with his painting 'Green Fields'.

IMAGE:

Bundit Puangthong

Green Fields 2018

150 x 135cm

acrylic & pastel on paper

READ MORE HERE

With an annual prize pool worth $12,000, the Waverley Art Prize is open to painting, drawing print & mixed media.

Eliza Gosse's work "Lone Ficus on New South Head Road is a finalist in the 2018 Prize.

Designed as an invitational award, The Gold Award aims to acquire contemporary Australian painting to Rockhampton Art Gallery’s collection by means of the most outstanding work or works by an artist awarded a cash prize of $50,000 and acquired by Rockhampton Art Gallery. The Award was conceived in 2010 when the then Rockhampton Art Gallery Trust received a substantial bequest from the Estate of Moya Gold for the acquisition of Australian paintings. With industry review and guidance, the Trustees advised to expend the interest accumulated by the Gold Trust to fund a new painting award. Now in its fourth iteration The Gold Award has become a premier biennial event of national significance. Presented by Rockhampton Art Gallery, The Gold Award is a joint initiative of Rockhampton Art Gallery Philanthropy Board and Rockhampton Regional Council.

The Gold Award 2018 has been judged by Simon Elliott, Deputy Director, Collection and Exhibitions, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art.

Bundit Puangthong was selected for the Gold Award in 2018.

IMAGE:

Bundit Puangthong

Sharp Knife 2018

acrylic, spray paint and soft pastel on linen

168 x 168 cm

READ MORE HERE

Vipoo Srivilasa's work forms part of a touring exhibition through the Australian Design Centre titled 'Obsessed: Compelled to Make' which is on now at Cairns Regional Gallery.

Obsessed: Compelled to make presents the work of 14 artists from across Australia, delving beyond the finished object, beyond the personality of the maker, into the fundamental conceptual framework of their creations. We look at the complexities of their materials and processes, the realities of their day-to-day studio routine and unravel what compels each maker to create over the course of their personal career – Why this technique or material? Why that concept? How does the mind of a maker work?

This exhibition explores the act of making through the framework of obsession – how it consumes us, carrying
 us along in its wake, colouring every aspect of our lives.
 With these professional artists, it is their obsessions, and all the associated angst, failures, breakthroughs and milestones, that feeds their productivity and to deliver exceptional outcomes. 

Artists: Gabriella Bisetto | Lorraine Connelly-Northey |  Honor Freeman, | Jon Goulder | 
Kath Inglis |
 Laura McCusker |
 Elliat Rich and James B Young (Elbowrkshp) | 
Kate Rohde |
 Oliver Smith | Vipoo Srivilasa | Tjunkaya Tapaya | Louise Weaver | Liz Williamson. 

Obsessed: Compelled to makeis an Australian Design Centre of ADC on Tour exhibition touring to 12 venues across Australia, accompanied by a series of films and a full-length catalogue.

READ MORE HERE

Vipoo Srivilasa's work #happy_together VI 2017, acquired by Wollongong Art Gallery, is currently being exhibited in 'East Meets West' until 11 November 2018.

The Mann-Tatlow collection of Asian Art, gifted in 2003 and the Nancye Dryden Collection of South East Asian Textiles bequeathed to the Gallery in 2012, have formed the Gallery’s newest collecting area. This exhibition relates collection works by contemporary Asian artists and Australian artists who have responded to Asian culture within their practice and to the Mann-Tatlow Collection of Asian Art including works by Julie Bartholomew, Lionel Bawden, Kirsten Coelho, Tom Dion, Dongwang Fan, Sarah Goffman, Tie Hua Huang, Shotei Ibata, Lindy Lee, Joanne Saad, Shigeo Shiga, Vipoo Srivilasa, Laurens Tan, Andy Warhol and Gerry Wedd.

READ MORE HERE

Eliza Gosse's work is included in the 2018 Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize. The theme of the prize is resilience. Gosse's work depicts a house in the suburbs of Melbourne designed by Russian architect Antol Kagan and is part of a larger series that investigates the architecture of post WWII refugees in Australia.

READ MORE HERE

This is us, this is the way it is – that’s what Sally Mulda’s paintings of life seem to say.  Paddy wagons in the river, policemen pouring out grog, an assortment of bottles and cans lying on the ground; four disconsolate people, probably men, walking away.  Dogs, children sleeping and everything in between that makes up life in the Alice Springs Town Camps, are depicted in her paintings, raw and free.

Barnaby Smith has reviewed Vipoo Srivilasa's exhibition Everyday Shrines at Gippsland Art Gallery:

'The experience of belonging to two or more countries is an increasingly universal one, especially for Australians. An affiliation with multiple cultures and an identity formed by multiple traditions is, after all, the migrant experience. It is a theme that has been widely explored across the arts spectrum, yet rarely with as much playfulness as in the work of Thai-Australian ceramicist Vipoo Srivilasa. His new exhibition Everyday Shrines, shown at Gippsland Art Gallery as part of Craft Victoria’s Craft Forward series, takes an impish yet thoughtful approach to fusing the imagery and iconography of Australian and Thai societies.'

The exhibition is current until 17 June 2018 at Gippsland Art Gallery.

Read full article HERE

Jo Hoban from the Design Files recently caught up with Bridie Gillman in her Brisbane studio.

Brisbane-based artist Bridie Gillman is inspired by cross-cultural experiences – from a childhood growing up in Indonesia, to residencies abroad and trips across Australia. Her bold, striking compositions convey moody landscapes, exploring both emotional and physical terrain.

- Jo Hoban, the Design Files

READ MORE HERE

Vipoo Srivilasa's solo exhibition 'Everyday Shrines' will open at the newly refurbished Gippsland Art Gallery on 31 March 2018 and run until 17 June.  The exhibition which has been developed jointly with Craft Victoria, looks at similarities between Srivilasa's Thai heritage and his adopted home in Australia.

READ MORE HERE

Vipoo Srivilasa's work 'Deity of Immortal' has been selected as a finalist in the Tom Bass Prize for Figurative Sculpture Exhibition at Juniper hall in Sydney from 2 - 25 March.

READ MORE HERE

Vipoo Srivilasa's work 'Sang Thong' has been acquired by the Whitehorse City Council in Victoria.  

The City of Whitehorse is located just 15 kilometres east of Melbourne and covers an area of 64 square kilometres.

Srivilasa's work 'Sang Thong' is based on a well-known Thai folk tale, centred on a marriage between a man and a woman of different social status.

READ MORE HERE

Sally Anderson's recent exhibition 'Self Storage and the Really Real' is featured in the January edition of the Art Almanac.

'Self Storage and the Really Real’ looks at ways we authenticate experience and store memory in object and place’, says artist Sally Anderson whose abstract compositions brim with clear references to past experiences; from the hydrangeas at her childhood home to shells from the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, and Norfolk Pines from recent Instagram posts to landscapes from past and present relationships. These works are a visual archive giving permanence to intangible memories and making them, as the title implies, ‘really real’.

- Art Almanac

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE:
SALLY ANDERSON
Tosha Falls as Curtains with Deegan Drive or LJs Mums Hydrangeas 2018
acrylic on linen
122 x 122 cm

Miranda Skoczek's exhibition 'Rag Rugs and Lion Heads' is featured on the Art Guide website. Miranda spoke with Louise Martin-Chew about her latest exhibition 'Rag Rugs and Lion Heads', her inspiration and the shift in her practice to looser, more expressive works:

Miranda Skoczek’s abstract paintings evoke old walls with layers of forms and shapes that emerge over time. In her studio, she might work simultaneously on nine canvases. Transferring from one to the other, she allows each oil layer to dry before repeatedly painting over it until jewel-like colours resonate and a spatial sensibility has been established within which the viewer may dwell. Skoczek told Art Guide Australia, “I don’t paint about social concerns. I create wholly immersive, beautiful pictures. They are places for escape and restoration: harmonious, calming pictures.”

- Louise Martin Chew

Miranda's exhibition is at the gallery from 14 November until 5 December 2017.

READ MORE HERE

Miranda Skoczek was a featured artist in the international group exhibition, The human experience, we are the ones doing works on canvas/Paintings XXXX at the Carlsberg Byens Galleri & Kunstsalon in Denmark. The exhibition was curated by Galina Munroe (Great Britain), Simon Ganshorn (Denmark) and Jordan Kerwick (Australia). The show featured 116 artists each working with abstraction through painting in their own distinct manner to promote diversity and highlight the possibility of medium and painting theory.

READ MORE HERE.

Sally Anderson has been awarded the Brett Whiteley Travelling Arts Scholarship for 2017.

The prize is $40,000 and a three month residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, administered by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The annual Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship is open to Australian artists aged between 20 and 30. It was created from an endowment left by Beryl Whiteley, who witnessed the profound effect that international travel had on her son Brett Whiteley, as a result of him winning the Italian Government Travelling Art Scholarship at the age of 20.

The exhibition will open 13 October – 19 November 2017 at Brett Whiteley Studio, 2 Raper Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010.

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Julian Meagher and Vipoo Srivilasa for being finalists of the 2017 National Still Life Award at Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery.

The acquisitive Award offers a major award of $20,000 as well as a People’s Choice Award of $5,000. This years' judge is Lisa Slade, Assistant Director of Artistic Programs at Art Gallery of South Australia. 

Finalist works exhibited Friday 24th November 2017 to Saturday 20th of January 2018 at Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery.

In conjunction with National Clay Week, Artaxis presents 12 hours of live-streaming conversations with 24 Artaxis members from 16 countries.

Vipoo Srivilasa is scheduled to talk between 12:00pm - 1:00pm, 11 October 2017. Questions may be submitted here. 

Vipoo’s work explores similarities between the cultures of his native home, Thailand and his adoptive home, Australia. His work is a playful blend of historical, figurative and decorative art practices whilst engaging with contemporary culture.

Using blue and white colour, he creates complex narratives through highly decorated images on ceramic forms. His work requires an intimacy in which the key elements of the drama are often found in unusual places within the forms themselves.

Collaboration has been an important part of Vipoo's creative practice. He has been using clay to engage communities into his creating process in the past 10 years. In addition to exhibiting his work, Vipoo actively initiates and organises cultural exchange projects between national and internationally artists.

Get your questions ready and join Vipoo and others for a Q&A. To watch click here.

Vipoo Srivilasa is the recipient of the general skills and arts development grant from the Australian Council for the Arts to work with Sakarin Krue-On, a multi-disciplinary Thai artist, and Marije Vogelzang, the world's first eating designer from the Netherland, in order to develop and create new interactive ceramic work for an exhibition at Edwina Corlette Gallery in 2019 and the S.A.C. Subhashok The Arts Centre in Bangkok. 

Keep up to date here.

Ari Athans' work has been selected for Redcliffe Gallery's 15 Artists Exhibition 2017.

This annual award plays a pivotal role in the growth of the Moreton Bay Regional Council Art Collection. The $8000 acquisitive prize exhibits 15 Artists that reflect the collection’s focus of culture, identity, spirit and sense of place.

Artists selected for 2017 are Ari Athans, Glenn Barkley, Sue Beyer, Megan Cope, Hannah Cutts, Jeremy Eden, Martin Edge, Ian Friend, Stephen Hart, Barbara Heath, Abbey McCulloch, Kate McKay, Stephen Nothling, Graeme Peebles and Nan Dingle.

The exhibition runs from 1 September - 28 October 2017.

READ MORE HERE

Sally Anderson has been selected as a finalist in Newcastle Art Gallery's Kilgour Prize.

In 1987 artist Jack Kilgour bequeathed funds for the creation of a figurative and portrait art competition to be run in perpetuity at Newcastle Art Gallery. Today the Kilgour Prize is one of Australia's major art prizes and awards $50,000 for the most outstanding work of art as determined by a panel of three judges, and $5,000 for the People's Choice Award, as determined by votes from the public.

The Kilgour Prize will be on display 5 August - 15 October 2017.

READ MORE HERE

The Drawing Wall is an ongoing series of site-specific, commissioned, temporary wall-based drawings or installations enlivening the foyer-space of the Eastbank Centre, directly outside Shepparton Art Museum. This year Bundit Puangthong has been commissioned to complete a drawing across the 4 x 12 metre space as well as conducting a stencil workshop in July.

READ MORE HERE

Occurring biennially, the 'Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize' attracts Australian artists and awards an acquisitive prize of $50,000. The Prize provides Bendigo Art Gallery with the opportunity to survey contemporary painting by established and emerging artists from across Australia.

Works from the shortlisted artists will be on display at Bendigo Art Gallery in the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize exhibition from 17 June – 20 August 2017. The 2017 winner will be announced at the exhibition’s opening on Friday 16 June 2017.

Bundit Puangthong was selected as a finalist in the 2017 prize for his work 'No Where To Hide'

IMAGE:

Bundit Puangthong

No Where To Hide 2017

acrylic on linen

168 x 168 cm

READ MORE HERE

Ari Athans work 'Felsic Plume' has been selected as a finalist in the 2017 Moreton Bay Art Award. This annual acquisitive award exhibition is supported by the Moreton Bay Regional Council. The Art Award offers two acquisitive prizes of $7,500 and two supplementary $1,000 prizes for a Local Artists and a People’s Choice Award.

The Moreton Bay Region Art Award has featured prominent and emerging artists for the last 24 years, and is now an important feature in the cultural landscape of the region.

Dr Campbell Gray, Director of the University of Queensland Art Museum is the 2017 judge.

IMAGE:

Ari Athans

Felsic Plume 2016

enamel on mild steel

30 x 70 cm

The Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award has shortlisted Vipoo Srivilasa's work, amongst others for its annual prize.

"This is the ninth year of the award and we were pleased to receive 232 entries, from which 40 finalists were selected.   

The external judges are Mr Ewen Coates (Sculptor) and Associate Professor Ken Wach, Former Principal Research Fellow and Head of the School of Creative Arts, The University of Melbourne.
 
The Small Sculpture exhibition launch is on Tuesday 6 June, 2017. 

The Sunshine Coast Art Prize is a national contemporary acquisitive award presented by Sunshine Coast Council. The Award is open to any artist who is an Australian resident, working in a 2D medium.

Forty finalists have been selected for an exhibition at the Caloundra Regional Gallery and the winning work will be added to the Sunshine Coast Art Collection.

Angela Goddard is the judge for the Sunshine Coast Prize 2017. Angela is the Director of Griffith Artworks, responsible for the Griffith University Art Collection and the Griffith University Art Gallery, Brisbane. Angela was previously the Curator of Australian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA). Winners announced 31 August.

IMAGE:

Bundit Puangthong

Where Is the Buddha? 2017

acrylic on linen

122 x 122 cm

READ MORE HERE

Miranda Skoczek presents her first collection of jewellery works at Pieces of Eight Gallery in Melbourne as part of the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2017.

In DESHILADO, Miranda pays homage to the samplers created by stitchers in the early 16th Century. The collection is a three dimensional gathering of a myriad of interests and influences remixing materials and techniques, blurring the boundaries between objects, jewellery and art.

With a desire to connect ancient traditions with fashion, while acknowledging the archaeological importance of jewellery as artefact, Skoczek takes the opportunity to bring permanency to ornaments that have up to this point existed as abstract fragments in her paintings.

The exhibition is current until 25 March 2017.

READ MORE HERE

Vipoo Srivilasa has won the 44th Muswellbrook Art Prize in the Ceramics section.  The $10,000 acquisitive prize was awarded to Vipoo's porcelain work 'The Good, The Bad and the Cuddly (self portrait)'.

The biennial Muswellbrook Art Prize began in 1958 and has helped form a significant collection of modern and contemporary Australian painting, works on paper and ceramics for the Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre.

The exhibition is current until 7 May 2017.

Muswellbrook Art Prize

Miranda Skoczek is featured on The Design Files blog with a look at her move from an inner city two bedroom apartment, to a bucolic retreat set amongst the verdant landscape of the Dandenong Ranges. Miranda and her seven year old son Harper speak about the influence of nature on their lives and the impact a move to the country will have on her painting practice.

IMAGE:

Miranda Skoczek and her son, courtesy Caitlin Mills

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Iconic Australian blog The Design Files visited Sally Anderson in her studio recently, to see how things were progressing in the lead up to her first solo exhibition.

Working predominantly with a muted colour palette, the artist will often add an unexpected contrast, like a brush of bright magenta. ‘For me, working with colour is very intuitive; I might spend weeks working with dusky colours, only to come in one day needing to mix a cyan blue,

The paintings are an ongoing process of adding layers and marks. Sometimes Sally will paint over a work in her studio that she’d thought she was long done with. ‘My partner once said that my pieces are a bit like découpage… with individual snippets and cut-outs layered heavily onto a surface,’ she says. ‘My mum has always loved crafts and used to actually découpage the furniture in our house… maybe that’s unknowingly made an impression on me!’

- Sally Tabart, The Design Files, 2021

READ MORE HERE

Headlining the celebrations for Queensland's Gallery of Modern Art is 'SUGAR SPIN — YOU ME ART AND EVERYHTING' featuring over 250 contemporary artworks exploring light, space, architecture and the senses. From brand-new immersive works to large-scale visitor favourites, the exhibition reflects our complex connections to the natural world with an explosion of colour, sensation and spinning delights.

Major new artworks include Nervescape, a multi-coloured landscape of synthetic hair by Icelandic-born artist Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir a.k.a. Shoplifter, and the electrifying Heard by American sculptor and performance artist Nick Cave, a group of vibrant sculptural horses brought to life by dancers.

Vipoo Srivilasa's work 'BLEACH IV' is part of the exhibition which runs until 17 April 2017. Read more here.

Established in 2001, the Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale in Korea is one of the largest ceramic events in the world, representing contemporary artists from over 70 countries. 

Artists are invited to take part in the competition which calls for works that mirror modern trends and point to the future of contemporary ceramics and redefine its essence by exploring spirit, values, forms and technique. 

The winner will receive a cash prize of KRW 50,000,000 (approx $43,000 US) and will be invited to have a solo exhibition during the 2019 Biennale. 

In 2017 Vipoo Srivilasa will be representing Australia. READ MORE HERE.

Miranda Skoczek is renowned for her engaging, energetic works and her spectacular use of colour. A fixture on the Australian art scene, her work is instantly recognisable for its layers of intuitive colour, pattern and motifs. Iconic Australian label Country Road thought her work was perfect for a collaboration with charity RedKite. Miranda has designed two tote bags and a t-shirt, with all proceeds from each sale going towards providing essential support to children and their families who are facing cancer.

IMAGE:

Miranda Skoczek in her home, courtesy Country Road

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The first Central China International Ceramics Biennale will be held at the Henan Museum. Curated by art historian Wendy Gers the biennale will exhibit work by 50 Chinese and international artists.

Vipoo Srivilasa is one of six artists to be commissioned to create a site-specific work for the Biennale. In November he will take a residency at the Ceramic Art Institute of Henan University to create six large figurines for the exhibition.

One of the biggest celebrations of cultural diversity in New South Wales, Parramasala will be held from 10-12 March 2017, thanks to a multi-year funding arrangement between the State Government and City of Parramatta Council. 

Parramasala’s new mascot, an illuminated six metre tall inflatable creature will be revealed prior to the festival. Created by Vipoo Srivilasa, the mascot represents the coming together of many cultures in a harmonious and friendly way. Vipoo incorporated the V symbol denoting peace to reflect the multicultural event.

“It was an amazing experience as I’d never seen my work this size before,” the Thai-born artist said.

Vipoo Srivilasa's work has been curated into Gippsland Art Gallery's 'Weird Ceramic' exhibition.

Weird Ceramic is a survey of the strange and peculiar in contemporary Australian ceramics featuring twenty-seven works by eleven artists: Glenn Barkley, Stephen Bird, Chris Dolman, Lynda Draper, Donna Green, Emily Hunt, Philjames, Jenny Orchard, Stephen Ralph, Sarah Smuts-Kennedy, and Vipoo Srivilasa.

With its basis in the 1970s arts/craft movement, contemporary ceramics has one eye on the past while looking forward to new forms, techniques and processes.

Saturday 26 November 2016 to Sunday 12 February 2017, open during Gallery hours.  Read more here.

Melissa Pesa thoughtfully writes about Bundit Puangthong's latest exhibition in the current edition of Art Almanac:

Puangthong’s paintings explore, in depth, the cultural differences experienced since his arrival in Australia in 2000. Utilising a range of techniques from stencils to detailed, academic brushwork and an evocative colour palette, Puangthong creates texturally layered paintings that highlight his interest in American pop and Australian street art. Captivated by Melbourne’s creative ambience, its feast of colour, ideas and energy generated from public spaces, cross-cultural similarities became apparent. Puangthong reminisces, “When I came to Melbourne and saw all the street art everywhere it reminded me of the stencil work in the temples in Thailand.” Incorporating this approach with a modern medium, Puangthong brings a fresh art style onto the canvas.

- Melissa Pesa, Art Almanac

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Vipoo Srivilasa who is a finalist in the 2016 Basil Sellers Art Prize.  

The prize defines sport in the broadest possible sense. An acquisitive prize of $100,000 will be awarded to a single, outstanding artwork, displayed in an exhibition of shortlisted finalists at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne in July 2016.

This prize is supported by Basil Sellers in order to encourage contemporary artists to develop their practice, to engage with the many themes within sport past and present, and to contribute to critical reflection on all forms of sport and sporting culture in Australia.

View available works by Vipoo Srivilasa HERE.

Congratulations to Stefan Dunlop who is a finalist in the Caloundra Regional Gallery's Sunshine Coast Art Prize. The prize is a national contemporary two-dimensional award with an acquisitive prize of $25,000 plus a studio residency at Montville Country Cabins. The winner will be announced on 1 September 2016.

IMAGE:
Stefan Dunlop
Stairs 2015
oil on linen
147 x 117 cm

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Vipoo Srivilasa’s solo exhibition ‘Red-Eared Slider’ is currently underway at the Subhashok The Art Centre in Bangkok, Thailand.

The ‘Red-Eared Slider’ is a turtle native to the United State and feral across the globe. Originally introduced by a Japanese trader in Thailand, these red-eared turtles disrupt the natural ecology of Thai waters, threatening the native freshwater turtles. For Vipoo, who divides his time between Bangkok and Melbourne, the red-eared turtle represents the disregard humans have for their environment.

The exhibition is current to 30 April, 2016.

Click here for more information.

Deianira Tolema explores the concepts behind Vipoo’s practice in ‘Vipoo Srivilasa’s Playful Kingdom of Ceramic Figurines’ for Hi Fructose: The New Contemporary Magazine. She writes,

"Srivilasa’s work also explores the commonalities between Thai and Australian culture and Eastern and Western culture, where he uses blue and white as a reference to the export of blue and white porcelain from China to Europe. While being fully aware of his heritage, Srivilasa has been mixing up echoes from the past with traces of the present in a carefully arranged juxtaposition of old and new ways of thinking.”

Read the full article here.

Vipoo Srivilasa’s  has been chosen by Rebecca Hill, Exhibitions and Collections Co-ordinator at Gallery Oldham, as her favourite piece in the Crafts Council Collection, London.

"I really love the fact that this piece is technically excellent, yet doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously.” Rebecca Hill, January 2016.

Read the full article here.

Vipoo Srivilasa's sculpture 'Collective Reef' has been shortlisted for the $65,000 Fleurieu Art Prize for Landscape, hosted at the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art in Adelaide. The Fleurieu Art Prize focuses on landscape as a means of expressing the power of connection to place. This years judging panel includes Nigel Hurst, Director of Saatchi Gallery London; Suhanya Raffel, Deputy Director and Director of Collections AGNSW; and Erica Green, Director of Samstag Museum of Art. 

The winner is announced at opening night, Thursday 3 June 5 - 7pm at the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art in Adelaide, University of South Australia, 55 North Terrace, Adelaide. The Exhibition is current 3 June - 29 July, 2016.

Vipoo will present a new body of work at Edwina Corlette Gallery 16 November - 3 December, 2016. To view Vipoo's available works, click here.

This March at the Festival of Live Art in Melbourne, Bundit Puangthong will take part in Asian Artists in Conversation. Participating artists will provide a critical overview of the Asian art landscape, and discuss the shifting boundaries and concepts of contemporary Asian art.

When: Sunday 6 March, 1pm – 5pm

Venue: FCAC Roslyn Smorgon Gallery

Cost: Free, bookings required

The Festival of Live Art is hosted by Arts House, Theatre Works and Footscray Community Arts Centre, and is current 1 – 13 March 2016.

Bundit's forthcoming exhibition is from 4 - 22 October 2016.

READ MORE HERE

Vipoo Srivilasa has collaborated with local indigenous artists for Collisions: Cross-Cultural Collaborations, a community cultural development partnership between Shepparton Art Museum and Gallery Kaiela. The project involves local Indigenous artists partnering with established Melbourne-based contemporary artists.

Through the sharing of ideas, narratives and techniques, the artists have engaged in an exploration of cultural difference and similarity, conflict and connection, forging relationships in a dialogic exchange that departs from the art-making process.

Collisions: Cross-Cultural Collaborations is on show at SAM and runs current to 14 February 2016.

Read more.

Watch Bundit in the Studio Here

Vipoo Srivilasa exhibited in 'More Love Hours' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne. 'More Love Hours' brought together the works of contemporary Australian artists who use traditional techniques and processes in their practice. The works demonstrated the use of 'traditional' forms of creativity as a means to express contemporary values and complex ideologies.

'More Love Hours' installation at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, photographed by Viki Petherbridge

Carol Shwarzman writes, "at first glance, their balanced poise beckons for our approval, to satisfy desire for perfection, decoration, or to escape into the soft murmurs of collectible comfort and status quo. Inevitably, closer inspection reveals Srivilasa's take on cross-cultural social tensions, the commodification of artistic integrity, the role of the self within popular culture, and the history of ceramics worldwide."

To see more of Vipoo's work, click here.

Read Stefan Dunlop's feature in Issue #29 of Artist Profile.

Congratulations to Vipoo whose work New Family I (2014) was recently acquired by the Parliament House Collection, Canberra.

Congratulations to Vipoo whose work Soup Bowl With Turtle (2012) was recently acquired by the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital, Brisbane.

Congratulations Vipoo Srivilasa who recently visited the U.S. to be a part of the Roundtable Discussion for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) on March 26, 2015.

‘”Pass the Peas: Food, Objects and the Making of Community”, will expand on themes explored in our 2015 keynote lecture. Namita Gupta Wiggers will moderate this lively discussion with Aruna D’Souza, Julia Galloway, Frederick Opie and Vipoo Srivilasa. As writers, artists, curators and historians these individuals all deal with the complex ways that we understand place and memory through objects, food and community engagement.’

Miranda Skoczek has collaborated with Gorman Clothing for their 2015 winter collection. In sync with the label’s aesthetic, Miranda’s artwork blends seamlessly into signature Gorman textures and styles. Her work is featured across all 53 pieces in the collection, with every print originating from five of her artworks.

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Vipoo Srivilasa whose work Bleach IV (2012) was acquired by the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art.

Image: Bleach IV (2012), pocelain and cobalt pigment

Congratulations to Vipoo Srivilasa who was announced the winner of the 2014 Gold Coast International Ceramics Award.  Vipoo’s thoughtful porcelain work Battle of Old and New Power was selected from 48 entries from several countries including Japan, Argentina and Isreal.  Judge Dr Patsy Hely from the Australian National University School of Art described Vipoo’s work as having ‘resonance not just with one country’s internal battles but with the pulls and pushes of global relations and power struggles more broadly. In this way, it is a work in which the contemporary world is writ large.’ Srivilasa’s work was described as ‘at once beautiful and unsettling’ and reflects the contemporary world by ‘speak[ing] loudly of this moment in time.’

Image: Battle of New and Old Power (2012), porcelain

Dr Ashley Crawford - a freelance cultural critic based in Melbourne - has written a glowing essay on the progression of Rhys Lee's art practice.

Lee’s passport is stamped with a variety of exotic locales; he has been to Anger, he has stopped over in Love, he has traversed the landscape of Fear and, jet-lagged, he has experienced the Delirium of insomnia.

Like all adventurous travellers, Lee is a voyeur of the unknown. As this book opens we see him astride in alien locales, sheltering in a snow-capped tent in Scandinavia, peering over a swimming pool in a sweltering Havana. And there, early in his travels, are the first tentative sketches, faces – whether faces in the street or self-portraits is nary an issue; in many ways all of Lee’s work are self-portrayal. In 1999, the eyes stare out, Klimt-like, a mixture of defiance and trepidation. That same year, Lee discovers his trademark harshly-cropped skull in Haircut (1999). By 2000 the die is cast in a more assured self-portrait complete with sketchbook, a portrait of the artist as a young man.

IMAGE:

courtesy NBB Gallery, Berlin

READ MORE HERE